


The Guardians of the Force

by Sereq_ieh_Dashret



Category: Legacy of Kain, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-Imperial Resistance, Blood and Gore, Chronic Illness, Crossover, Dimension Travel, Everybody is Queer, Fix-It of Sorts, Force Bond (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Kemetic Concepts, Janos is the only calm person on the ship, Kain is a badass, Kain is the worst mentor ever, Mature Men in Love, Maul is a badass, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Multiverse, ObiMaul is the new ValVert, Pillar Guardians, Pillars of Nosgoth, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Screw Destiny, Self-Sacrifice, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Survivor Guilt, The Force Ships It, Thrown Together By Fate, Trans Ezra Bridger, Trans Male Character, balance of the force, but he tries, everybody has issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-01-01 06:52:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12151047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sereq_ieh_Dashret/pseuds/Sereq_ieh_Dashret
Summary: In an attempt to fix the Pillars before the Giant Squid wrecks them any further, Kain decides that waiting for new Guardians to emerge won't do. With thousands of Universes at his disposal, thanks to the Pillar of Dimensions, all he has to do is "borrow" the right people from their native Universe and coopt them to his cause.With Janos Audron tagging happily along, Kain invokes the power of the Pillar of Balance to guide him to experienced Guardians. The vampires end up in the Galaxy Far Far Away, where all the Guardians are unaware of their birthright, utterly insane, kids, or both, and embroiled in a war for the destiny of their own Universe. Quid pro quo does it, only Kain is not prepared to be adopted by a gang of lunatics, to play putative father to the resident Guardians of Balance or to deal with his grief and his guilt. This time he might have bitten a lot more than he can chew.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is the result of my musings on Balance and Ma'at and of my dissatisfaction with some storylines in Rebels, in particular with Maul's portrayal in S3.  
> I took a leaf out of Michael Moorcock's books and smashed a few universes together so that the Guardians of Balance could meet.  
> I don't know if I will ever finish this fic, but I have a few plot bunnies.

Maul stood, lighting his stolen saber as he did. Sand crunched under his metal boots as he sank into a ready stance.  
On the other side of the campfire, Kenobi did the same, his eyes narrowed in concentration and determination, his Force flaring like huge beating wings all around him. Such power, such righteousness. The intervening years had worn him down, but deep within, underneath the mask of indifference and fatalism he was still the headstrong, determined and brave Kenobi he had always loved to hate, Maul thought allowing himself a secret smile.

His questions had uncovered that elusive glint of hope, always glimpsed but never secured, and one last chance to do what he must. Before his oldest adversary, he felt once more like his life had some measure of sense, some purpose, a center of gravity that held it together.  
He would finish what he had started. This would be the last time their sabers crossed, and it would be perfect. His words, carefully measured to alarm and disquiet had finally awakened the Jedi's long-dormant spirit and the result was magnificent, truly something worth seeing for oneself one last time.

The air tasted sweeter now that he knew that each breath could be his last. It was roiling with power, both Kenobi's and his. They were still well-matched, as always, like two sides of the same coin. The thrill of the fight pulsed through his veins, and he had to consciously remind himself that his enjoyment was no longer the point. Now that he knew where his purpose lay, he must achieve it, by any means necessary. He wasn't going to waste his chance and put everything in jeopardy for a lark. He would focus, he told himself, though the currents of the Dark Side were threatening to engulf him in the extasy of battle, he would ride the tide and remain in control.

Feet shifted in the sand as they adjusted their stance, gazes locked as fiercely as blades. Maul shifted again, concentrating to feel the ground beneath him and avoid fatal missteps. There would be no margin for error, not this time. He would make things right.  
The Force all around them was tense as a bow-string, the air hummed, louder and louder, until he could feel it pressing against his eardrums and reverberating against his skin and horns.  
"Something is not right...", he managed to think.

Space and time split open with a sickenining, wet tearing sound. A rent appeared mid-air, a few paces away from them, edged in a virulent green luminescence that reminded Maul of the demented, ravenous spirits of the fallen Nightsisters, and from it issued a pair of monstrous pincers, followed by a bulbous, chitinous body and a misshapen head with a dog-like face.

Maul growled a curse and gnashed his teeth in frustration. His mind had chosen the worst possible moment to give out on him once again. Ah, no matter. He would just have to ignore it for a few minutes more and then the problem would sort itself out, he told himself, turning his gaze back to Kenobi. He just hoped that his nemesis hadn't noticed how he'd spaced out in the middle of the fight. The last thing he wanted was his danmable pity. He was broken, but not finished, not yet.

Kenobi however was looking in the general direction of his hallucination as well, and his aristocratic features were twisted in an expression of horror and disgust.  
"Wait, what...?" he thought.  
"You can see them too?" he asked out loud, disbelief tinging his voice.  
Kenobi nodded, shifting his stance to face the creature. Creatures actually, as more and more were slipping out of the rent and onto the Tattooinese sands.  
One of them growled something, its voice dissonant and unnatural. Maul wasn't even sure it was speaking Basic, but somehow he knew without knowing how that, not unlike him, the creatures were there for a purpose and their purpose meant the end of the only ray of hope that still existed.

"Hell no." he thought, throwing his stolen saber into the mass of still-confused creatures. It buzzed as it spun on itself, careening through the air in an arc. The creatures didn't even realise what had hit them. A head rolled to the floor in a spray of greenish ichor, severed neatly at the neck, and another creature roared in pain, trying to keep its arm attached to its torso. Maul pushed the Force against them in a concussive blast even as the saber returned to his hand like a faithful dog.

"Kenobi, run!" he yelled, all but pushing his nemesis in front of him.  
Though stunned by the turn of events, the Jedi seemed to catch his drift well enough and started legging it. His first attack had caught the beasts by surprise, but there were too many of them, their powers unknown, and the position was not well-defensible.

"What are they?!" Kenobi yelled as he ran.  
"And why would I know?!" Maul retorted, trying to keep up. Running in the sand was not in his top ten of favourite things to do. He'd sink a lot further than anyone else, and the sand would get into his joints and jam them. He just hoped his legs wouldn't grind to a halt.  
"You're the Darksider here!" Kenobi pointed out, glaring at him.  
"They are here for the kid." Maul said instead.  
"For Ezra?!" Kenobi asked.  
"For your kid. The one you're protecting." Maul explained, rolling his eyes. For all his supposed Light Side wisdom, he was a bit thick.  
"And how do you know?!" Kenobi insisted.  
"I just do! Stop talking and run!" he yelled.

One of the creatures at their backs belched a gout of flames as it ran after them. While it was too far away to deal any effective damage, Maul could feel the heat on his back through his clothes.  
"We need to get them off our back!" he yelled.  
"That wadi! Move!" Kenobi instructed, jerking his head towards a crack in the cliff-face ahead. Maul nodded in agreement and followed him into the narrow defile.  
The dry torrent was narrow enough that the beasts would have to follow them in single file, but rather than turning and fighting, Kenobi kept running.  
"Do your trick!" he yelled, barely turning to look at him.  
"What are you talking about?!" Maul retorted. He was supposed to be the one who didn't make any sense.  
"The thing you did with the ship. On Florrum. Do it again! Those rocks..." Kenobi turned to point, panting for breath between words.  
Maul followed his direction. On the side of the wadi he could see sheets and blocks of sandstone, eroded by the wind and only nominally attached to the cliff-face.  
Behind them, the beasts were in hot pursuit, all but bowling each other out of the way in their haste to rend them limb from limb. With their unnaturally long, many-jointed legs, they were stradily gaining ground, little by little.  
Maul gauged the distance between them and their pursuers, cast another glance at the cliff-face and nodded to himself. He pointed his hand at the rocks and grabbed with all the Force he could muster, then yanked them down as hard as he could. The cliff-face roared and rumbled like a wounded animal, shaking in pain, as the rocks tumbled down on top of their pursuers squashing a few of them like the bugs they resembled and blocking the path for the rest.  
"Eat dirt, suckers!" he yelled in triumph even as he kept running.  
After a long day of marching under the sun, looking for his quarry, he should have been weary, but his spirit was singing with the joy of battle, blood pumping fast in his veins, Force flowing through him as if he was a conduit between the heavens and the chtonian spaces below. He couldn't help the grin that spread slowly on his face. In spite of all, he still had it, and it felt strangely right to be fighting alongside Kenobi instead of against him, as if some fundamental flaw in the universe was being smoothed over, leaving it beautiful and new.  
What a moment for such a discovery...

They kept on running, slowing down to a fast jog to conserve energy now that the pursuers had been thwarted, and suddenly after cresting a small rocky crest, scantily covered in scraggly bushes on the shaded side, they happened upon a low, whitewashed construction surrounded by water condensation apparatuses. A moisture farm, a small one, probably operated by a family, who lived of its meagre profits. Within, muted by slumber, three force signatures: two were barely perceptible, greyish and faint, belonging to regular humans, but the third... the third was young and bright, fresh like cool, pure water and radiant with power and yet still gentle, innocent. A child who had never killed and never known suffering. Full of potential, but untrained.

"We need to wake them up and get the hell out of here." Kenobi panted. The run had taken its toll on him. The years he had spent holed up on this planet might have strengthened his grasp of the Force and deepened his wisdom and crap like that, but evidently had not done him any favours in terms of physical condition.  
"Wait, are you going to trust me anywhere near your Chosen One?!" Maul provoked, pretending to be shocked.  
"Does it look like I have a choice?" Kenobi retorted, rolling his eyes.  
"Nope. It does not. - Maul confirmed, unable to hide his glee - Come on, let's move. The demons I haven't flattened will soon find an alternate route." he added, marching resolutely towards the house.  
Kenobi trotted after him and grabbed him by a wrist. Anyone else would have foind themself with a dislocated wrist and elbow for their troubles, but that was Kenobi, touching him voluntarily and not to harm him, and for a moment Maul was too shocked to react. His fingers were warm and dry against his skin, his grip firm but not bruising.  
"What are you doing?! I will go in first. - Kenobi hissed, pulling him back sharply - Owen Lars has a plasma rifle and will shoot any intruders. He's a good marksman, and against a plasma bolt point-blank to the face there is not a lot even you could do." he warned.  
"And... and that is a problem since when?" Maul argued, tilting his head slightly to the side in confusion, as if by looking at him from a slightly different perspective he could understand what was going on.  
"Since there are too may of those things for me to fight alone and for once I am glad that you are still the same maniac as always." Kenobi retorted without missing a beat.

"Of course." Maul acquiesced, ignoring the slight twinge of pain at his words. For a moment he had mistook Kenobi's pragmatism for concern on his behalf. What a silly, desperate thing to do. He didn't deserve concern, or pity, or mercy. He knew that, he should not forget it.  
"Lead the way, then, Master Jedi." he added with a mocking half-bow.  
Kenobi cast him a long, inquisitive glance and took a half-step, then stopped.  
"I won't try to stick a saber in your back, Kenobi. - he sighed, rolling his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest - That was never the point. Now less than ever." he added, wishing he could slap himself for how his voice trailed almost wistfully at the end.  
"No, you are right." Kenobi acquiesced with a minute incline of his head. He straightened with a sigh and marched on, towards the farm.

They were some fifty meters away when something glinted behind one of the small windows. Maul had barely the time to pull Kenobi to the ground before a plasma bolt whizzed over their heads.  
"How wonderful..." he commented, spitting a mouthful of sand. The one time he actually rode to someone's rescue, they'd shoot him. No good deed went unpunished apparently, he considered wryly as more bolts criscrossed the night air.  
"Lars! Stop shooting! It's me, Kenobi!" the Jedi yelled.  
"I told you already not to come here, didn't I?! Get the fuck off my property, you and your buddy! Right now!" a voice shouted back from the house, then a few more shots buzzed towards them, increasingly close, to threaten but not to hurt, not yet. It looked like the farmer knew how to shoot, just as Kenobi had said.

"Listen to me Lars, you and your family are in grave danger! Luke is in danger" he tried to reason with the shooter.  
"Of course he is! You want to drag him into that senseless cult of yours to get killed! - Lars argued - I won't let you take him away from here and turn him into a failure like you!" he declared, and from the sounds of it he was probably going to rant a bit more, given the time.

Maul could feel the green-tinged wrongness of the demons approach again, closing in with every passing second and, as amusing as it was to see Kenobi face-down in the dirt, pleading for reason, they simply didn't have the time for it. He gave another look at the window to gauge the distances, then closed his eyes and pulled through the Force. There was a startled cry, then the rifle flew out of the window, clattering on the ground close to them.  
Maul pulled again, harder, and this time Lars himself flew out of the window, landing in a bruised heap on the sand. It all happened too fast for Kenobi to protest.

He stood up and ran towards the fallen man, hoping that no one else in his household was as trigger-happy.  
"Look, Lars, I understand to what extremes one would go to protect one's family..." he drawled as he picked up the human by the collar and hauled him up bodily, twisting the cloth in his fists so that it would cut off his airflow a bit. Lars was younger than both him and Kenobi and bulkier, dark-haired and scruffy-bearded, with watery blue eyes that were now dilated with fear. He had that effect on people, more often than not.  
"But, first of all Kenobi is not a failure, and secondly, we really have to move, you see?" he added, twisting the cloth a bit more in an irritated reflex. How dare this... this nobody insult the Jedi like that?! He knew nothing, understood nothing. He was barely worthy of shining his boots.

"Maul! Don't hurt him, or I swear on the Force..." Kenobi threatened. A lightsaber buzzed close by. He had gone too far, Maul realised. It was just like Kenobi to be willing to fight for one that had probably been shunning and humiliating him for the last fifteen years...

"Or what, you'll kill me? And risk the life of your Chosen One?" Maul asked, turning his head towards him with a smirk and a raised eyebrow. He pushed a fragment of a memory into the human's mind, showing him what was coming for them. He struggled weakly, emitting a weak, whining noise and wetting himself. Maul let the terrified Lars fall to the ground like a sack of sweetroot and stepped away.  
"You're welcome, at any rate." he said with a shrug.  
"You're welcome?!" Kenobi repeated, growing bright red on the cheeks and ears. He had not sheathed his saber yet, but the tip of it was dipping towards the ground.  
"Yes, you know, for stopping him from shooting you and removing the obstacle from our path." Maul said, gesticulating dismissively, embarrassed in turn. Kenobi just looked at him as if he was totally out if his mind and didn't say a single word. Maul tried to push the disappointment away. He knew he didn't deserve thanks. He shouldn't try to extort them like that. It was undignified.

"You'd better get the child and the woman out. I'll stand guard." he added with a sigh. He picked up the rifle from the floor and stood next to the blubbering human. The sand crunched under Kenobi's boots as he walked away in silence, then there was the sound of muffled voices, arguing tightly.  
Maul kept his watch in silence, scouting the dunes and ridges ahead to catch a glimpse of the approaching enemies, his night-adapted eyes as sharp as ever in this atmosphere devoid of artificial lights and clouds. Moonshadows here were as sharp as the regular sunshadows were under the twin red suns of Dathomir, he marveled, suppressing a twinge of nostalgia. Dathomir was a planet of the dead now. He would never see it again.

When the first demon crested the hill, standing tall like a dark speck against the sky, Maul was ready to receive it. He flipped the shot selector to long-range and lay down on the ground, propping the barrel against a stone and waited, slowing down his own heartbeat with an effort of will.  
"Come on, prey. Just a little bit to the left." he whispered to himself. The demon sidestepped, losing its balance on the shifting sands. Maul squeezed the trigger. A red bolt of plasma crossed the night, sizzling as it went, and the demon fell in an uncoordinated heap, a hole blown clean through its chitinous carapace, fouling the ascent of a couple of its bretheren.  
"We got company! Get a move, Kenobi!" he yelled, even as he took aim onto another target and took the shot.  
Lars's rifle was surprisngly good for such a backwater hillibilly, he noted peripherally, going through the cycle of aiming and shooting again and again, as fast as he could. The press of bodies on the hillock did half of the job for him. No matter how quickly he shot, he was sure to hit something that hurt.

There was some commotion from the house.  
"How many?" Kenobi asked, running, half-kneeling to his position.  
The cluster of demons on the hillock had grown to a sizable force, no matter how many of them Maul had managed to mow down with the rifle.  
"Do we have any more rifles?" Maul asked.  
Kenobi shook his head.  
"Then too many to withstand a siege." he declared, taking another shot. Having reached critical mass, the demons had started coming down from the hill. It was a matter of minutes now.  
"Is there another of those wadi nearby?" he asked.  
"There are plenty." Kenobi acquiesced.  
"Show me." Maul instructed.  
Kenobi hesitated, a worried, perplexed expression on his face.  
"Why are you trying to help me?" he asked instead.  
"My reasons are my own." Maul snapped, temper flaring. He couldn't tell him. He would not understand why he had to do what he was doing.  
"Just do it, for Force's sake!" he growled.  
Kenobi sighed and closed his eyes. A flow of images layered on his mind: canyons and narrow valleys and defiles and a larger valley with a deep-cut furrow in the middle. Once there were mighty rivers on this planet, stong enough to cut and warp the rock around them. Now only dry beds remained, gathering some moisture every now and again. Maul nudged the flow to show him what he was looking for, trusting Kenobi to adjust it accordingly.  
The larger valley was not far, connected to the plateau where the Lars homestead was built by a narrow canyon. It was too far to be reached on foot, but the family had a landspeeder and a speeder bike. A ship could land there, even one as large as the Gauntlet...

He interrupted the contact, shaking off the last traces of the brush against Kenobi's mind, and moved away from the rifle.  
"Your turn, Kenobi. Thin the herd." he declared, motioning for the Jedi to swap for him.  
"What are you planning to do?" the Jedi asked, almost resigned.  
"I'm going to call for reinforcements." he replied with a grin.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: strong mentions of suicidal ideations, angst and headcanons. Ezra wants to fix things really badly.  
> The idea for the drawings was from the Rebels S3 episode in which Maul draws Ezra to Dathomir.

Finding Maul's ship had been all too easy (as if he had already known where it was) and when he got there the key was already in his pocket, placed there as if by magic, just to make his life easier.

Hackles rising, Ezra had stepped in the cavernous hold, wary of a trap.

The Gauntlet had been designed to hold a crew of ten, fifteen people, but even at a first casual glance it was clear that most of it had been empty for a while. Only one cabin was occupied: a few scant belongings stacked on the shelves, a few clothes, black or gray and hooded, in a rack, a sheet on the mattress. Pencil sketches were tacked on every available surface, like in that cave on Dathomir: a man that looked superficially like Maul, armed and armoured but with a gentle look on his tattooed face, a mature woman, chalk-skinned and tattooed, wearing a cowl and a sad smile, a few Mandalorean warriors. In a corner there was a very accurate portrait of a younger Master Kenobi next to a beautiful, stately woman in a regal headdress. They looked happy. A few electric candles were lighted at the foot of each drawing, as if they were sacred icons, as if it was a shrine to people long gone, Ezra thought, but then in a corner next to the cot he saw one last drawing, newer and crisp, lovingly made. It was him.

 

His hair was still long, falling in his eyes, and he was smiling as he extended a hand towards the viewer, an excited and confident look sparkling in his eyes. In his hand rested the Sith Holochron of Malachor, but somehow it looked small and unimportant. He was the focus, the important thing there, the only thing that mattered. That was him after he'd jumped back from the Holochron chamber, trusting Maul to catch him, back when he'd thought it all was a wonderful adventure, that he'd found something worth the effort down there, not just the bloody trinket, but an ally, a friend, when he had felt something click in the Force, like a missing piece of his world. He had mourned that moment, after it all turned to ashes and betrayal. It seemed like he wasn't the only one to bear that particular scar.

 

Ezra looked away, taken by the sudden impulse to tear it in little pieces and burn them, because he'd had no right, no right at all to hold on to that moment after what he'd done to him. He'd had no right to miss it, after he'd destroyed it and ground it to dust, over and over.

His hand twitched, but he reigned the impulse in, breathing deep to push back the tears that had started burning in his eyes. There would be time for that later, he told himself, nearly throwing himself out of the room, now he had to figure out the commands and head back to Atollon and the Ghost, before they got too worried.

 

He got to the cockpit through the long route, inspecting the rest of the ship for booby traps and tracers, but he found nothing of the sort. The food stores were well-stocked, the tank full, the armory in order. Everything was spotless clean, without a single speck of dust. An eerie air if wistfulness and loneliness seemed to emanate from the very walls.

"You deserved it." Ezra thought loudly in his head,  ignoring the way his heart wrenched at the thought that Maul must have cleaned it up before he drew him to Tattoine because he wanted Ezra to have it from the start. Because he had never planned to go back to wherever his home was, if he had one.

 

When he finally got to the cockpit,  the letter had been waiting for him on top of the console, stack of flimsi sheets bound with twine. "For Ezra Bridger", the top one read. It was penned in thick, deeply indented strokes. Almost no one took the trouble to write by hand any longer, but Maul had, and a lot, by the looks of it, sheets and sheets of well-handled paper, one after the other, for days probably.

 

Against his better judgement, his fingers nimbly untied the twine and before he knew, he had flipped the first sheet out of the way.

" _If you are reading this letter, it means that I am dead or I am about to die, and I guess it was time. I_ _don't expect you to mourn it, I know I don't deserve it._ _Whatever little_ _I own is yours now, to do whatever you wish. I know that this does not offset all the pain that I have caused you, nothing would, but it's the best I can do now."_ the first lines read. It was a farewell letter, or some sort of testament, or both rolled into one and soaked with liberal amounts of guilt and despair.  Maul wasn't planning on coming back. He never had.

 

_"When I met you on Malachor, I had given up any hope of finding a reason to go on,_ \- it continued and Ezra could almost hear his voice, quiet and slightly hoarse, overlaid over his as he read - _but for a few hours, before I ruined everything, you made me feel like I had it, like there was still something bright and welcoming out there, something worth living for. You made me feel like there was a future ahead, a chance to make things better. I didn't deserve it, of course, as I amply demonstrated it, but I still owe you for those perfect moments of hope and happiness. I would have given you my teachings, my loyalty,_ _anything you asked,_ _but now as I depart towards Tattooine, the only thing I have left to give you are these few days before the end and the truth. I want, no, I need you to know how we got here, and what you are fighting against, so that you might be forewarned and forearmed on your rebellious path."_ Maul wrote, the words succeeding each other furiously, with barely a space between them. 

_"I know that at this stage you probably hate me, and with plenty of reasons, but if you ever cared for me, even just for a minute, please, read this, even just once before setting it on fire or spacing it. There is probably no one left alive who knows the Emperor like I do, and while I told some things to some people, they are all dead now, and I never told all of it to anyone. Some things in here I am not proud of, most still hurt, and a few I wish I could forget forever, but if any of this can help you find a weakness to topple him or survive and fight another day, then I'll consider my misfortunes worth the price and my life well spent. -_ the letter continued, crinkled in places, as if the flimsi had been dripped with water and left to dry -  _I love you, Ezra Bridger, as I loved my mother and brother, as I would have loved a child of my own blood. As much as I am capable, at any rate. Enough to know that this is actually the best ending for whatever there never was between us. May the Force be with you when I am gone, and guide you always."_

 

The words blurred before his eyes, but Ezra kept on reading, even though he knew he should leave and return to his allotted place, like Master Kenobi had said, and let Fate run its course. Maul had entrusted those words, his story, his life, to him only, and he was not going to run the risk of having it found and read by someone else. He owed the former Sith that much at least.

He read and read, page after page dripping with pain, some narrated with detachement, as if it was something that happened to someone else, some so raw to be almost inintellegible, every emotion, every vulnerability laid bare, sharp as a razor.

 

Ezra tried to stay detached himself, tried to keep his mind clear, but he couldn't. He started crying halfway down the third page, and by the time he had gotten to what happened on Orsis he was sobbing without restraint. He skipped pages, flipped onwards, looking for something, anything that looked even a bit like a ray of light, but there was none. There was no respite, no mercy, no happiness that didn't end in tragedy, no love that wasn't snached away by death, only years and years of guilt and grief, of trying to fix things and not succeeding, until life itself became a burden, a mistake that had to be atoned for. Malachor had been the last straw and everything after that a long gambit to find an acceptable way to end it.

It was not fair, it was not right! 

And it was even less fair that it had to end like that, that he'd die thinking that everybody hated him and that it would have been better if he had never existed in the first place.

 

He was so immersed in his own vicarious misery that it took him a while to realise that something was nudging at his mind, gently at first and then with increasing urgency.

"Ezra!" Maul's voice echoed in his mind through the Force as sharp and clear as if he had been right next to him. Ezra lifted his face and looked around half-convinced he'd see a translucent Force-ghost next to him, but the Gauntlet was still as quiet and empty as before.

"Maul! You are alive!" he sent back, a lot louder than he planned. His heart was beating double-time, his limbs felt weak with relief. Maybe there was still a chance to make him change his mind, to fix things, to save him.

"Things didn't go quite to plan, as usual..." he sent back, a wry undertone colouring he sending. "Are you on the Gauntlet?" he asked with nary a pause.

"I am." Ezra admitted.

"Do you think you can fly it?" Maul insisted.

"Yeah, I think so." he replied, then spat it out before Maul could continue.

"I read your letter. Not all of it, bits here and there. Enough, I think."

He paused, waiting for a reaction, but there was none.

"You don't have to do it. There has to be another way. We can find it together." he sent, nearly dizzy with the effort of making the sending as clear as possible even though he was choking on a mixture of grief and hope and nostalgia.

"There is no time for this now, Ezra. - Maul sent back after a long, silent pause, the words flavoured bittersweet with emotion - I need you to do one last thing, to help me one last time to do what needs to be done. It's too long to explain, though. I'll have to show you." he added, oddly hesitant, afraid to be refused.

Ezra knew he would have had every reason to do so, given what had transpired between them, but sent the mental equivalent of a nod and opened himself wider to the sending without hesitation, trying to project that he wanted to trusted him again, that he was willing to give it another go.

A torrent of images flowed in his mind. The night, strangely bright and detailed, the shadows sharp and defined, and Master Kenobi, wreathed in blue light like a spirit, and then a rift in the fibre of the Universe, and a mass of creatures to horrible and mismatched to describe. Fighting and running down the wadi, the exhultant joy of one last battle next to the one warrior he considered as an equal, and then a house and a child, blond, blue-eyed, bright in the Force, in danger, and the creatures in hot pursuit.

"What do I need to do?" Ezra asked, trying to keep his bearings amid that deluge of feelings.

Another stream of images bloomed in response, a large canyon, its falesias perforated by scores of inlets of narrower valleys, leading back to the homestead.

"I need you to be our getaway driver, Ezra. Without you we'd be most likely doomed." Maul replied.

"I'll be there as soon as I can. You hang in there, alright? I've got your back." Ezra replied frantically. His hands were already busy, turning on the engines and the sensors as fast as was humanly possible. If he could only get him to the ship and talk to him, work through the shit they had been through because of his death-wish and his belief that there was no way Ezra would interact with him if not coerced, maybe he could make him reconsider.

"Farewell, Ezra." Maul sent, then the link went silent and all Ezra could do was hope that he'd be there in time to save them all.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, grief, self-sacrifice.
> 
> Italics means mind-to-mind communication.

"They're still after us." Obi-Wan commented, looking out from the back of the speeder of the Larses.

"They're a persistent bunch of buggers, that they are." Maul agreed, aiming down the barrel of Owen's rifle. 

It was beyond strange to sit next to him as if they were old allies instead of each other's nemesis.

 

Maul's presence was heavy in the air, loud, swirling with eddies and flows of emotion, sharp as steel. It felt a bit like sitting next to a live electric wire or to a ticking time-bomb, but at the same time he was glad he was there.

The intervening years had been kinder on his enemy than they'd been on him and he still looked and felt as formidable ad ever, his thin, spare frame seemingly made of whipcord taut muscle and subtle scars, his eyes gleaming with mad glee and his tactical acumen unchanged.

 

There were a few other people he would have trusted to be able to fight their way through hordes of... things, but Maul was notorious for pulling off the impossible over and over again, through sheer bloody-mindedness, and now he seemed determined to save them, for some reason known only to him.

Obi-Wan knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, but if the situation changed, he would put an end to the whole charade with his lightsaber.

 

"Keep this trap steady, kid!" Maul barked at Luke. His shot had gone wide as the speeder swerved to avoid a boulder.

"I'm trying!" the youth shouted back.

The speeder was overloaded with the five of them and the droid and the defile was just barely wide enough for it to fit, scraping its sides against stray boulders, but Luke was doing a pretty good job of gunning the vehicle through it at the top achievable speed without crashing it against anything. In this he was his father's son through and through.

 

Maul froze for a second, holding his breath and slowing his heartbeat with a twist of the Force, then squeezed the trigger once more. One of the demons fell in the dust, tripping a couple of others, but the rest kept on running after them, inching closer, relentless.

Maul growled low in his throat and took another shot and then another, both hitting their marks in spite of the motion of the speeder.

The former Sith was a really good shot, unexpectedly so.

 

"Why didn't you shoot us down that first time here on Tattooine?" Obi-Wan asked. The question had been burining in his mind for close to thirty years and he was aware that it was probably not the best moment to ask it, but it didn't look like there would be better ones anytime soon, and at any rate the situation was so surreal and absurd that he might as well indulge his curiosity.

 

Maul turned towards him and glowered.

"Are you seriously asking me this?" he retorted, sounding offended, of all things.

Obi-Wan nodded, watching him closely for potential signs of impending violence. So far he had been positively friendly, for his standards, but Obi-Wan knew how unpredictable he could be. Things could change at the drop of a hat.

The tense moment only lasted for a few heartbeats, then Maul rolled his eyes and sighed.

 

"Any idiot with a sniper rifle can put two people down from a distance and cause them to die without knowing who has killed them and why. -  he said - There would have been no point in doing so. Not for me, at least... Sidious instead would have been fine with you dead by any means: it was just business for him, after all." he added, more weariness seeping in his tone with every word.

"But you didn't even know us, back then!" Obi-Wan protested.

Maul sighed again. "You were Jedi, and your kin had exterminated mine long before either of us was born. Sidious had made sure I could never forget." he explained, shaking his head.

"What are you talking about?!" Obi-Wan exclaimed.

"Malachor V. The Jedi slaughtered every single person in the Sith Colony, including non-combatants before Darth Traya blew everybody to smithereens to cover the escape of the younglings and the archives. - Maul replied, his voice quiet and his and gaze distant, almost unfocused - And don't try to deny it. Their spirits have shown me the truth." he barked at the end, turning back towards him with a venomous glare.

"I wasn't going to. - Obi-Wan tried to pacify him - But that was millennia ago." he pointed out.

"Was it? For me it is nearly every other time I close my eyes. - he commented with a bitter little laugh - It is as real as the death of my own clan, or of yours. Just as painful." he added, closing his eyes and lifting a hand to cover them.

 

Obi-Wan looked at him without knowing what to think or feel at those words, at the pain that seeped out from him through the Force for a brief moment, before it was absorbed back in, its every vestige washed away by a tide of white-hot anger, but that too faded, leaving only grief in its wake and that grief was so similar to his own that it could be its twin.

Obi-Wan reached out instinctively, his fingers brushing against the smooth, fever-hot, patterned skin of Maul's forearm. He startled and whipped towards him with a snarl.

"I don't want your pity." he rasped, red-gold eyes glittering in the grey light of the early dawn.

"I don't pity you any more than I pity myself, Maul. We're what is left after our world crumbled. Nothing can make it feel any better." Obi-Wan retorted, leaving his hand where it was and seeking his gaze with his own. That seemed to calm him, for a reason, his expression changing from snarling fury to confusion and finally to regret before he moved his arm out of reach and looked away.

 

"Nothing, you say? Not even the knowledge that there is hope and it is standing right next to you? That your line does not end with you?" he asked after a brief pause, still refusing to look towards him, but nodding discreetly towards Luke, who, oblivious of their conversation, was still driving like all hell was on their tail. It was close enough.

Obi-Wan hesitated a moment, wrong-footed by the sudden change of tide.

"You love the kid, don't you? As if he was your own flesh and blood." Maul insinuated, his voice raspier than usual, shouldering the rifle once more.

"Jedi don't form attachments. I was tasked to protect him, that is all." Obi-Wan managed to reply, spitting out the rehearsed, socially acceptable version of the story, but Maul smelled the lie almost immediately.

"You want to train him. You want to be there for him and help him grow into his potential.You want him to love you as much as you love him.  - he insisted, fixing his smoldering gaze on him once more - You'd do anything for him, even swallow humiliation after humiliation, even die little by little, all alone, because you think you don't deserve him." he concluded, with that uncanny ability to see through him and into his deepest, most secret vulnerabilities.

"I did what was right. Unlike what you did with that boy, Bridger." Obi-Wan countered, drawing the tatters of his pride around himself like a cloak.

 

Maul flinched as if struck, then dropped the gun on the back seat and shoved him hard against the side of the speeder and kept him there, pinned with an arm across his throat.

"You know nothing of it! Nothing! - Maul hissed, nearly shaking with anger, his skin like electricity against Obi-Wan's bare throat - Have you ever been so thirsty that you'd kill for some water, no matter how filthy and stale? Imagine that all of a sudden it rains, and the water is so pure and clean that you want to cry..." he added in a quiet, intense whisper, his face hovering close enough that Obi-Wan could feel his breath puffing against his face.

 

He caught a glow of green out of the corner of his eyes, and turned minutely, as much as the pressure would allow. Fire. Green fire hurtling towards them, a torrent of it and it was going to...

 

Maul pushed away from him and stood, arms extended in front of him, hands spread open, yelling in defiance and a green-glowing barrier materialised just in time. The flames washed over it without harm, like the sea against a mighty rock and Maul gritted his teeth against the onslaught, sweat beading at his brow.

Obi-Wan picked up the rifle from the back seat. The flame-belching demon was not hard to find, a larger, squatter specimen, with clovern hooves and curling horns. He took aim and shot, over and over, until the flames receded and it finally fell down.

 

"What was that?!" Luke yelled from the driver's seat, his voice pitched higher in terror. 

"Keep on driving and you'll never know!" Obi-Wan yelled back.

Maul collapsed back on the seat, breathing hard and wiping the sweat out of his eyes with the back of a gloved hand.

"That was a close one." Obi-Wan commented, sitting back next to him. The barrier was new too, and odd. Such a protective magic for someone so aggressive. But then again, he'd given up the chase to rescue his brother, back on Florrum. Maybe the potential had always been there.

 

Maul didn't even seem to hear him. "Ezra is the rain. - he whispered, looking down at his hands - He's everything I never imagined I could have in my life, and I need him more than anything else in this rotten Galaxy, but I have been pushing him away in every way I could. And you know why? Because is the right thing to do, no matter the price. He deserves better than me." he declared, clenching his fists hard enough to make the leather of his gloves creak and the tendons in his forearms stand out, tense like steel cables.

Grief and longing, loss and regret coloured the Force around them, almost palpable in the first rays on Tattoine's first sun.

 

"You care for him." Obi-Wan whispered, almost astonished by his own conclusion. The intervening years had changed him much more than he had originally though.

Maul nodded, hiding his face in his hands.

"Then why did you put him at risk like that?" the Jedi asked, daring to inch closer to him, a hand hovering close to his shoulder.

"He was never really in danger. I was looking after him from a distance. I would have never let him come to real harm. - Maul retorted -  Everything else was just a bit of theatre: for my plan to work, both of you needed to be convinced that I was dangerous and out of control, that I needed to be stopped." he confessed with a sigh.

 

"Your plan?! - Obi-Wan repeated, a horrible suspicion coiling in his gut - Why did you come here, Maul? What did you seek?" he asked, giving the former Sith a long, inquisitive stare.

"Hope. I looked for it for so long... I wanted to see it for myself." he replied in a whisper, turning to look at Luke, who was doing his best to ignore their antics and keep on driving.

"And you. I wanted to see you one last time before the end." he added, turning back towards him with a wistful, tired smile.

 

"You wanted me to kill you." Obi-Wan said with sudden, desolating certainty. 

"You're the person I harmed the most and with the least reason. Maybe it would have brought you satisfaction, or at least closure. Or maybe I am giving myself too much importance and you'd just have been annoyed you'd have to dispose of a body... - Maul replied with a shrug - It seemed fitting, but now it's not going to float, is it? Jedi compassion does not extend to putting down a wounded beast like me." he challenged, but still smiling.

 

Obi-Wan struggled to find the words to contest. It was not that he didn't care for him, that he didn't feel his pain or didn't understand his predicament. He too longed for the moment when he would be able to leave this world and all his failures behind and become one with the Force.

He wasn't even squeamish about violence. He could have killed him in the heat of a battle, to protect Luke or Ezra, but he couldn't do it now, in cold blood, not even as an act of supposed mercy.

He couldn't face the idea of looking at him in the eye, as he was now, and dealing the death blow. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he did.

 

"I... I can't." he rasped, lowering his gaze in defeat.

"It's alright. - Maul said with a sigh, shifting his weight to his knees - I am kind of glad it didn't work out. It wouldn't have been entirely fair to trick you into it. This way is definitely better." he declared with a pleased little smile and a nod, squinting like a cat in the light if the newly dawned sun.

 

The creatures were still in pursuit, seemingly unhindered by the increasing light. Soon they'd reach them again, if something wasn't done to hold them off.

 

"Get the kid to safety. Help him fix what we could not. - he almost ordered,  placing a hand on his shoulder - And look after Ezra, if you can, alright?" he added, lifting his chin with a gentle touch so that they couldn't help but looking into each other's eyes.

He could get used to see them devoid of murderous rage and seething hate. Maybe he even wanted to.

 

There must be something he could say or do that would make him pause at least, Obi-Wan thought. There must be a way of fixing them both without anyone needing to die.

He was tired of death, of suffering, of loss. Maul was one of the last people left of his old world and he felt like that made him his resposability, somehow.

 

"I don't hate you any longer." he offered as an olive branch, even though it sounded incredibly lame. He had not though any further than that, given the suddenness of their alliance, but that much was true. It had been for a while.

"I don't either." Maul replied.

 

He leaned over and his patterned lips brushed against Obi-Wan's, fleeting like a dream.

The Jedi froze in shock, utterly paralysed by the riot of feelings thundering in his chest: surprise, confusion, a surge of wrongness, of shame, because this was the man who had made his life into hell and this couldn't be anything but another trick, but above all of it was longing, coming from Force-knew-where inside himself, somewhere oblivious to his Jedi vows that only wished for a balm to his solitude, a reason to keep on living.

 

His hands twitched, caugth between balling into angry fists to clock him in the face and grabbing his shirt to pull him closer, to hold him and never let go, but before his mind could decide, Maul had already broken the kiss and was vaulting out of the back of the speeder, saberstaff in hand.

 

Obi-Wan watched him roll to a stop and spring back to his feet, covered in dust but unharmed, throwing his saber in a spin once again and completing the manouver with a Force-blast to gain some time.

 

He turned towards the speeder once more, a fierce grin on his face, wreathed in the Dark Side of the Force like in a halo of fire and darkness, but this time Obi-Wan knew he had nothing to fear from the Dark.

 

" _May the Force be with you._ " Maul sent, then the Force coalesced into an almost tangible shape like a titanic hand and he pulled the world with it once again. An arch of stone overhead collapsed, tearing part of the falesias down in its descent.

The rubble piled up in the canyon, sealing it completely and hiding him from their sight.

 

Obi-Wan could hear a battlecry and a chorus of pained screams, then nothing as the speeder gunned down the defile even faster.

He had been too indecisive, too conflicted and that short, shining window of opportunity to change everything had slipped between his fingers like so much sand.

 

Half-thought potentials formed and disappeared before his mind-eye, filling him with longing for things that never were and never would be, and even though he knew that everything happened according to the will of the Force, and that to it the only thing that mattered was that Luke was safe, it still hurt. It hurt a lot more than would have ever imagined.

 

As the sun started its ascent in the sky, Obi-Wan curled up on the back seat of the speeder and wept.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of suicide.
> 
> This one is just a short bridge to the next bit of action, but I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.

The speeder erupted from the tributary valley at full speed, clearing the vertical offset between its bed and that of the larger one with a mighty leap that ended in a gut-wrenching, bone-jarring touchdown. It swerved, then the pilot brough it back under control and gunned it towards the Gauntlet. Ezra activated the ramp and ran towards the cargo hold, his heart thundering in his chest.

 

Covered in dust, scrapes and bumps but otherwise none worse for the wear, the speeder slammed to a halt in the cavernous space.

Two adult humans he'd never seen before, a woman and a man, jumped out of at as soon as it was safe to do so, nearly kissing the ground in relief.

That left only the driver, a blond, quite terrified human boy about his age, bright in the Force but totally unable to shield his feelings, and Master Kenobi, huddled in the back seat as if nursing a wound, now-dry tracks sneaking down his face like the dry riverbeds that criscrossed the surface of the planet.

 

"Where is Maul?!" Ezra asked. Did they have another vehicle in the convoy? The infuriating Zabrak had not said, but it was not outside the realm of possibilities. Maybe a speeder bike? He craned his neck to look out, towards the mouth of the wadi, waiting to see another cloud of dust, and whatever flamboyant entrance he had devised this time.

 

"He... he stayed behind." Master Kenobi rasped, rubbing dust and tears off his face as he alighted.

"He what?!" Ezra exploded.

"He sacrificed himself to stop the creatures, to hold them off so that we would get to safety." he explained, his Jedi Master tone slipping back into his voice, until by the end of the sentence he was almost back to the way Ezra had seen him the first time: cold, aloof and self-assured, looking at him with a slightly put-upon expression on those aristocratic features, as if his silly questions were putting a spanner in the works of his profound meditations on the Universe and everything.

"And you let him?!" Ezra accused, taking a threatening step towards him.

"You know as well as I do that there is no 'letting' as far as Maul is concerned. - Master Kenobi lectured - He realised what was at stake and made his choice. He understood that Luke's safety was paramount for the cause."

"Of course! Just another situation in which his life didn't matter in the grand scheme of things! As if he had not had enough of those!" Ezra yelled, months and months of frustration boiling over in one wash of Force, tinged Dark with grief and anger.

"Ahsoka's life didn't matter. Maul's doesn't either. Nothing we do ever matters, except the bloody will of the Force! - he argued - Well, screw it! I am not going to sit here and take it, this time." he announced.

 

There was a speeder bike in a corner on the hold. Ezra stalked to it, or tried to. Obi-Wan stepped in his path, blocking it.

"I can't let you go. - he said - I can't let you waste his sacrifice like that."

"What do you care? Your ward is safe, that's all that matters, isn't it? - Ezra retorted, words sharp and vicious with anger - Here are the keys, go and do whatever you're destined to do, now get out of my way!" he added, taking the keys from his pocket and throwing them at him, harder then necessary. He didn't even twitch to grab them.

 

They hit him on the forehead, scoring a shallow gash that started to bleed almost immediately. Outwardly he didn't even flinch, but it was as if his serene indifference had been but a thin layer of ice over a stormy ocean and the impact had cracked it.

"Please, Ezra... He told me to look after you and make sure you are safe. He asked me before he jumped. I... I couldn't stop him. I didn't manage to..." he sobbed, hiding his face in his hands.

"He hurts as much as I do." Ezra realised and all of a sudden his anger evaporated as if it had never been there.

 

He could sense the ghost of whatever perfect moment had passed between them, long awaited and immediately lost, he could feel how much he hurt for all that could have been and was not, but underneath it all he sensed the same weariness and loneliness, the same layers and layers of scars that Maul had also carried.

 

Master Kenobi wasn't planning to last much longer himself, just enough to complete whatever self-sacrificing quest was supposed to be his destiny, and then Luke would be in the same situation as they were now. After this, it might even happen faster than originally planned.

There were no happy endings in store for any of them.

 

"No." a voice said behind him.

Ezra turned, only to see Luke stand a few steps behind him, fists clenched at his sides, tears running down his face, nearly vibrating with emotion.

"No. - he repeated - I am not having any of this." he declared, and earnest, adamant look on his tear-stained face.

"I don't care if you think that I am part of some kind of prophecy, that I am supposed to be special or whatever. - he continued, though his voice shook, and his hands - I am just a kid who's good at driving. I am not special. And even if I were, I wouldn't want for people to think that I am worth more than they do, that I am entitled to their sacrifices. What kind of shitty saviour would I be if I acted like that?!" he argued and Master Kenobi looked at him as if he'd never truly seen him before, with a mixture of awe and fondness.

 

"I am not going to let your boyfriend throw away both your lives like that, Uncle Ben." Luke said finally, crossing his arms on his thin chest.

"Boyfriend?!" Ezra thought, watching Master Kenobi grow as red as a beet. He knew from his letter that Maul had complicated feelings for his former enemy, but from the Jedi Master's reaction, it seemed like they might not be entirely one-sided and unreciprocated. One more reason to get him out of that mess, he thought.

 

"I am going with Ezra. If you really want to protect me, you'd better get in this speeder real quick." he concluded, hopping back into the vehicle and motioning for Ezra to do the same.

"Let's get going!" Ezra prodded, hope and dread mixing in an ungodly brew in his thoughts. Luke turned the ignition key and revved the engine, turning in his seat to prepare to reverse.

 

"Luke, Ezra, wait! You can't go alone." Master Kenobi exclaimed.

"Then hop in." Luke challenged.

The Jedi climbed into the back seat as quickly as his voluminous robes allowed.

"He's going to be so angry about this..." Master Kenobi commented under his breath as the speeder reversed out of the hold.

"We might be surprised." Ezra retorted. 

 

Maul wanted to die because he though he had no more reason to live, no more purpose, nowhere to call home, but if they could give him one, things might change.

And then again, he was prepared to get shouted and yelled at as many times as necessary. Shouts were better than the silence of death.

 

"Anut Beru, Uncle Owen, lock yourselves in. We'll be back shortly!" Luke yelled at his still-shocked relatives, then gunned the speeder back into the valley as fast as it would go.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wild Kain appeared!
> 
> CW: violence, gore, swearing, suicidal ideations, self-sacrifice.

"This time you definitely bit off more then you could chew..." Maul taunted the creature, dropping to the floor to avoid another blast of flame.

He rolled as he went, clearing the space between the creature's legs and letting one of the blades of his saberstaff cut through its pelvis. The creatures seemed genderless, as far as he could tell, but the trick certainly hurt enough, judging from the dissonant scream issuing from behind him.

 

Maul got back to his feet, saberstaff swinging as he rose, chopping off a pincer aimed at his chest like a battering ram.

His clothes and skin were singed in places, he was bleeding freely from a few cuts and claw-marks, and his carcass was sore and bruised.

Some of his ribs were definitely not as structurally sound as they should have been, but the Force was sustaining him, sweet as nectar, heady as wine, keeping pain and fatigue away to let him finish the job.

 

The ground all around the wadi was littered with corpses and body parts, the sand stained dark and green with ichor, almost muddy underfoot in places.

Only a few creatures were left standing, attacking relentlessly in their mindless need to go past him and reach the Chosen One, when sentient enemies would have already broken ranks and turned tail, or backtracked and found another way around him.

Only a few more and he could finally rest, safe in the knowledge that he'd done his part, that he had somehow repaid his debt, at least partially.

 

The spirits of Malachor V swirled around him, for once comforting rather than maddening. They knew sacrifice, understood why he was willing to stand there and let those foul creatures tear him apart if need be, so that the others could escape and live to fight another day, like they had done for their children, like his mother had done for him. Ezra and Kenobi were his, and he wasn't going to let anyone touch them, be it Sidious or some random creatures from an infernal dimension.

"They will live! Do you hear me?! They will live!" he snarled as he fought.

 

Time dilated until it became meaningless, an eternity from one heartbeat to the next, each moment excruciatingly, beautifully clear.

This was what he had been born for, all his life had led to this perfect, sacred moment of clarity of intent and oneness with the Force. Candles always burn brighter before the end. He was glad he could experience the pure Dark Side, untainted by Sidious' greed like it was meant to be, at least this once.

 

The head of the last creature rolled to the floor at his feet, soon followed by its corpse. Maul folded to his knees on the floor. Everything hurt.

His breath came in short gasps, broken ribs stabbing him painfully with every single one of them, and his hearts beat too fast, trying to keep the blood pressure stable in spite of blood loss. Phantom pain shot up what was left of his spine, his head spinned and his vision blurred with fatigue.

"At last..." he thought, but it seemed like he had not earned his rest yet.

 

The wrongness in the air surged again and another green-tinged rent started to open a few meters away.

Maul gritted his teeth and pushed himself back to his feet, saberstaff at the ready, as another creature emerged from Beyond, stepping on the ichor-stained sand like he owned the place.

 

Not a demon this time, but an alien, a strange humanoid who looked like a sort of cross between a human, a Nikto and something else, at least six and a half feet tall and built like a bloody brick wall.

Tough, leather-like, mottled, gold-and-green skin, cloven hands and feet, short frontal horns like a crown framing ridiculously long, bone-white hair, harsh, sharp features, baleful golden eyes and a mouthful of fangs, uncovered in a vicious grin.

Everything about him screamed danger, but nothing more than the stupidly large flamberge strapped to his back.

The skull-shaped hilt even glowed with an eerie blue light, radiating power. The stranger was pretty powerful by himself, but that sword was just... creepy.

 

Maul had a feeling he wasn't going to walk out of there, not if his opponent was even half as tough as he looked.

Good thing he had never planned to do so. He just had to slow him down and deal as much damage as he could before he died. If he was lucky and played his cards right, maybe he would be able to fuck him up enough to stop him.

One could always hope.

 

"It seems that I have arrived late to the party." the stranger drawled, his voice deep and cultured and haughty. He didn't seem worried at all, but it wasn't the first time a stranger underestimated him because he was a bit on the runty side. They always had cause to regret it.

 

"Oh, don't worry. There's still plenty of fun to be had!" Maul retorted, unleashing a Force-blast.

The stranger was taken almost completely by surprise and bowled over. To his credit he managed to roll with the blow and was quickly getting back to his feet, but Maul didn't leave him the leisure to do so and pressed on his advantage with a swing of his saber.

 

For a moment it seemed like it would be over before it had even started, but the sizzling red blade struck only air. The stranger had dissipated under his nose like so much mist!

 

A sharp tug on the Force was all the warning he had before the stranger reappeared at his back, swinging that bloody huge sword in an effortless, mid-tigh-level horizontal arc.

Maul jumped as high as he could, somersaulting over his opponent's head. He landed hard with both feet on his back and used the Force to make the impact even harder, sending the stranger face-first on the ground.

He tried to follow up with a saber swipe, but the asshole dissolved into mist again, reforming a few feet away to aim a bolt of lighting at him.

 

Gritting his teeth, Maul blocked it with his saber, deflecting it against the rock face. After his experiences with Sidious, he had learned a few tricks to avoid getting zapped again.

The stranger's confused and astonished expression was utterly priceless.

"I bet you didn't see that coming."  Maul taunted, sinking in a low guard as he recovered his breath.

 

The stranger snarled. The creepy sword resonated with a bass vibration, turning a vibrant, earthy green, and was plunged point-first in the dirt. Deep cracks formed in the dry riverbed, expanding at prodigious speed towards where Maul was standing.

 

"Damn!" he thought, leaping out of the way.

A tendril of Force wrapped around him, like a strangler vine, and the stranger pulled on it, snatching him from mid-air and slamming him onto the ground with bone-jarring strength.

His reclaimed saberstaff flew from his hands, rolling a few feet away, but the stranger was already moving, mist-shifting as he charged, sword in hand, only to reappear even closer, grinning madly as he tried to cleave him in two.

 

Sinking deeper in the Force, Maul reacted on instinct, sidestepping to avoid the descending sword and Force-blasting the stranger point-blank. This time he didn't manage to mist: it was his turn to fly into the closest wall, impacting against it with a sickening crunch.

 

Maul called his saberstaff back to his hand and ran at him, kicking the sword out of the way with a metal boot as he swung it and hitting the stranger straight in the face with the follow-up roundhouse.

He knew from experience that the blow should have been hard enough to snap a man's neck, but the stranger just snarled again and swung at him, forcing him to block the sword with the haft of his saberstaff.

The metal was supposed to be resistant enough to withstand the plasma edge of a lightsaber, at least for a little while, but it parted like butter under the stranger's howling, flame-wreathed blade.

 

"Oh well..." Maul though distantly, backpedaling out of the way as fast as he could. At least one side was still working and he brough it to bear in a feint as he squeezed the last of his telekinetic abilities to pick up some of the rubble from the floor and send it flying against the stranger's back.

To his credit, he managed to notice it and avoid the worst of it, but that left him open to Maul's attack.

The crimson blade scored a gash against the man's chest, slicing through his cape, but somehow he managed to avoid being cut in half.

He moved faster than lightning, exploiting Maul's overcommitment to his attack and punched him hard in the ribs. Everything went black for a moment and the next thing he knew was that he was flying towards another wall.

 

The impact nearly knocked him unconscious again. His vision swam but he could still make out the stranger, advancing slowly towards him, sword wreathed in dazzling white fire and raised for the killing blow. He could taste blood in his mouth and part of his chest refused to expand when he tried to breathe. 

He wasn't going to be able to dodge out of the way again, not with a collapsed lung like that.

 

That was it, end of the line, he thought sluggishly, forcing his hands to move, looking for the hidden catches in his prosthetics and discreetly loosening them. There were worse ways to go than fighting for what one cared for, but he was going to give the stranger one last parting gift before he shuffled his mortal coil.

 

"Not bad for a mortal. - the stranger commented appreciatively, picking him up by the collar of his shirt with one cloven hand as if he weighted nothing - Now stop squirming and let's finish this, shall we?" he drawled, raising his sword to point it at him.

"By all means..." Maul managed to rasp.

With one last burst of energy he extracted the shivs from his prosthetics and slammed them as hard as he could between the stranger's ribs, even as the tip of the flaming sword plunged in his upper chest.

 

The stranger's face contorted in a grimace of surprise and pain, but Maul didn't have any time to gloat as the white fire started burned along his skin, quickly engulfing him completely.

Everything went white.

There was silence


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: implied gore, swearing, slight violence.
> 
> Look, a wild Janos appeared too! And... revelations!
> 
> I am weaving together concepts taken from Star Wars and from LoK, with a large helping of Michael Moorcock and of Ancient Egyptian Religion, so the philosophical background of the fic will not align precisely with either canon.

"This doesn't sound good." Ezra commented as the speeder stopped on the far side of the wall of rubble blocking the wadi. 

The silence was almost complete, oppressive like a metal lid over the clear morning sky.

Heart pounding in his chest, he jumped out of the speeder and ran towards the wall, scrambling up the shifting, unstable rocks as fast as he could.

"Ezra, wait!" Master Kenobi shouted, scrambling up behind him.

 

Ezra topped out and froze, surveying the grisly scene without daring to interpret it.

"Force help us!" Master Kenobi whispered, stopping next to him.

The wadi below was littered with corpses and body parts. So many creatures, all very dead, limbs chopped, guts strewn on the ground, heads severed, left to die of horrific wounds. Weirdly coloured blood was splashed everywhere, trampled underfoot in a mire. Even the wadi itself had not escaped the confrontation unscathed: the bed was riven by deep cracks, as if a localised earthquake had taken place, and the walls were decorated with impact marks as if heavy objects had been repeatedly slammed against them. Maul's saberstaff lay on the floor, severed in two through the middle of the haft, but where in that carnage was the Zabrak himself?

 

"Oh no!" Master Kenobi exclaimed, lifting a hand to cover his mouth.

Ezra followed his gaze and finally saw him. Off to one side, half-hidden by another corpse, something red and black stood out against the light background of trampled dust.

Master Kenobi climbed down the mound of rubble with an agility that belied his old man façade, leaping weightlessly from boulder to boulder. Ezra followed suit, hoping against hope that there would be something left to do.

 

Maul was half-sitting against a cracked section of the wall, eyes closed, an almost peaceful expression on his face in spite of the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. His opponent was half-kneeling, half-sprawling on top of him, propped up by his death-grip on the huge, rippling sword that was plunged in Maul's upper chest, just below his left shoulder, pinning him to the wall behind like a butterfly in a collector's display. Two shivs protruded from the stranger's chest, stabbed in to the hilt. Maul's hands were stained black with his blood. He had kept on fighting until the end.

 

"Why did you have to do this, you bastard!?" Ezra sobbed, letting himself fall to his knees next to the gruesome tableau. Next to him, Master Kenobi let out a low keening sound, kneeling in turn. He took Maul's blood-crusted right hand between his and raised it to his lips, depositing a brief, reverent kiss on bruised, scraped knuckles. It lasted for a moment, before the Jedi nearly dropped it in a startled jerk.

"I can feel a pulse." he whispered, eyes wide in amazement. Ezra leaned over and pressed two fingers against the side of Maul's neck. At first he couldn't feel a thing and was on the verge of turning on the Jedi with vicious words, for lack of a better target for his grief, but forced himself to calm down and wait and feel, and there it was. Feeble, sluggish, but definitely there. A pulse. Maul was still alive, if barely.

"Oh Force..." he whispered.

 

"Quick, help me!" Master Kenobi ordered, wedging his shoulder between the Zabrak and his opponent and shoving the latter back as hard as he could. The tip of the sword was jammed into the rock. It took the two of them to manage to make it budge slowly, inch by inch, to avoid jarring the terrible wound. The stranger had shoved it through with all his might. There was no kill like overkill, evidently. It was a miracle it had not snapped clean in half, but its uncommon resistance was not the only thing off about that ugly hunk of metal. It whispered, radiating power. Someone must have imbued it with the Force, a lot of it. It seemed almost alive.

 

Ezra took all possible care not to nick himself on it as he guided it out, letting Master Kenobi do most of the grunt work of shoving the bulky stranger out of the way. The body was already cold like the grave and locked in rigor so hard that they had not managed to pry his claws away from of the hilt. The most they managed was to tip him to one side and out of the way to apply pressure on the wound.

 

"We're going to have to carry him." Master Kenobi said, undoing his sash to tie it as a makeshift bandage around Maul's shoulder and chest to keep Ezra's shirt in place. Maul needed to get immediate medical help and it would take too long for the speeder to go around the barrier to pick them up on the far side. They had to go over it.

The boy nodded. It was hot enough already that he was tempted to just leave his jacket there and walk around in nothing but his binder, but ultimately decided against it and shrugged it back on. In all this mess, the last thing they needed was for him to get feverish with sunburn. One round of heat exhaustion had been enough.

"I'll get his legs." he proposed.

Master Kenobi nodded and looked on the verge of saying something more, when Luke called out from the top of the barrier, where he was keeping watch, rifle in hand.

 

"Guys! Look out! There is... there is a thing! Over there!" he alerted, pointing towards a strange green light that was floating mid-air and rapidly expanding into a sort of disc, large enough to let a grown man through. It was not exactly identical to the rift Maul had shown him, but his hackles rose all the same and he stood, placing himself between it and his companions, saber in hand as something flew out of it, landing in a graceful crouch a few meters from them.

 

Someone, actually: a tall, blue-skinned, black-winged humanoid who eyed the carnage all around with a mildly horrified expression. Power wafted around him, tinged blue and gold with the Light Side, or something close enough.

" _Mon Dieu..._  What are these demons doing here?!" he commented, his voice and demeanour full of concern, then his eagle-like golden eyes set upon the prone form of the stranger and went very wide.

"Oh no! Kain!" he exclaimed, feathers ruffling in alarm.

"Don't move! - Ezra yelled before he could take a single step and before Master Kenobi could react - Stay exactly where you are!"

The man turned towards him and raised his hands above his head, wings fanning slightly in reflex.

"I mean you no harm, young man." he said calmly, in a tine that reminded him of Master Kenobi.

"That's what everybody says! - Ezra retorted - Luke! If that guy moves, pump him full of plasma!" he added, hoping that the kid would not call his bluff. He was still too innocent, too pure for this world.

"No worries, Ezra! I got him!" Luke yelled back instead.

"Now, you're going to stay exactly where you are and answer my questions." Ezra continued, skewering the winged alien with his best glare.

"Alright. I will explain everything as much as I can." he sighed, keeping his hands up.

 

"You'd better. Do you know what this creatures are?" Ezra asked, twitching his head towards one of the closest ones, sliced cleanly in half by a lightsaber.

The man nodded. "They are demons from the Hylden dimension. - he replied, his voice confident - They have been despatched by the Elder God to kill the Guardians of Balance throughout the Multiverse. Kain and I have been tracking them across dimensions for a while." he added with another sigh, shoulders sagging under the weight of the task.

"The Multiverse?!" Ezra repeated, incredulous.

"Guardians of Balance?!" Master Kenobi exclaimed.

 

The stranger looked briefly between the two of them.

"Which one do you want me to answer first?" he asked, still serene and helpful. The guy could probably give points in peacefulness to most Jedi.

"Answer his first." Ezra ordered.

The stranger nodded. "Very well. The Guardians of Balance are entities who ensure that no fundamental force in their dimension is allowed to run amok unchecked, so that life can be preserved." he declared. A shiver ran down Ezra's spine at his words.

"They... they uphold Balance between the Light and Dark Side of the Force?" Master Kenobi ventured, voicing Ezra's own intuition.

The stranger tilted his head to one side in a very bird-like gesture, feathers ruffling.

"A purely dualistic system... interesting. - he commented, almost to himself -  In our original dimension the Pillars are eight, but they roughly align with either Chaos or Order. Too much Chaos makes constructing any sort of society impossible and fosters unnecessary conflict, but too much Order makes a world stagnate and die and breeds repression and censure. Balance makes sure that they are mantained in an equilibrium in which the world can prosper and evolve." he explained, gesticulating with his raised hands.

 

Ezra turned to glance at Master Kenobi, who looked up at him with an astonished, hopeful expression. Maybe these people were actually here to help, as strange as it may seem.

"Are you... are you a Balance Guardian?" Ezra asked, hesitantly lowering his saber to a less threatening position.

"Me? No." the stranger replied, shaking his head and sounding vaguely amused that someone could have mistaken him for them -"Kain is." he added, nodding towards the corpse.

Ezra exchanged a long look with Master Kenobi. That didn't sound good.

"We're deeply sorry about your friend, stranger."  the Jedi started.

"My name is Janos. And what are you sorry about?" he asked, tilting his head again.

"Your friend's dead. Like real dead. Our friend mistook him for an enemy and went to town on him." Ezra added.

"Kain is not dead." Janos objected with calm certainty.

"He most certainly is. - Ezra insisted - Cold, stiff, no pulse. He's dead as a doornail." 

"Can I approach him to check?" Janos proposed.

Another quick glance and then both him and Master Kenobi nodded. Janos stepped gingerly towards Kain, picking his way to avoid the worst of the muck, then knelt next to him, unmindful of the orangish dirt that would certainly stain his white tabard and trousers.

"Oh dear... This looks painful." he commented, grimacing, then grabbed the protruding end of one of the shivs and pulled it out. The corpse spasmed in a hackles-raising way, but Janos barely seemed to notice and moved to the next shiv, pulling it out with practiced ease.

 

The corpse... Kain shot up to a sitting position, gasping for breath, a cloven hand pressed on his chest and a bewildered expression on his harsh features. Power flared all around him, even stronger than the suffocating cloak of evil Ezra had felt around Darth Vader, but different, more beningn, more balanced. Somehow familiar, in an incomprehensible sort of way. Still, it was terrifying. And yet Maul had taken on him anyway, dealing enough damage to knock him out. It was damn impressive.

 

Ezra took a cautious step back and raised his sword again, blocking the way to where Maul was lying, still unconscious.

"Welcome back, Kain." Janos greeted, a warm smile on his face.

"Janos. What are you doing here?" Kain asked, finally noticing his companion.

"The same as you, I imagine: following a vision to find more allies to aid us in our quest. I was after the local States Guardian." the winged alien replied with a shrug and a quick glance towards where they had made their stand.

"Only I didn't expect to come here to find you... incapacitated." he added, with a hint of amusement.

"Damned Conflict Guardians. They always get me." Kain muttered, rubbing his chest. The stabbing wounds that should have killed him had all but vanished.

"Conflict Guardian?!" Janos repeated, turning to look at the three of them.

"The stripy one." Kain indicated, pushing himself to his feet and resheathing the sword behind his back.

 

"How fares he?" he added, looking towards Master Kenobi.

"He'll live." the Jedi replied.

"Yeah, and no thanks to you. - Ezra added, irked by the high-handed tone of the question - You skewered him like a marshmallow!"

Kain rolled his eyes. "He needed to be purified with the Spirit Reaver to be awakened to his role. A small cut would have have sufficed, but he struck me. - he countered - I must have fallen on top of him when I lost consciousness." he added with a shrug.

"And why didn't you try to talk to him before you ran him through with a sword?!" Ezra insisted, not mollified at all.

"I didn't really have the time to converse. True to his nature, your comrade struck first and didn't relent. It almost seemed like he didn't care whether he lived or died." Kain retorted, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at him. Force, he really did sound like one of those stuck-up Coreworlder nobs...

 

"He didn't. He was not planning to survive." Master Kenobi revealed. Janos flinched at those words, but Kain just shrugged again.

"I expect he will not be pleased when he wakes, then." he commented, extracting a vial of some blue-tinged liquid from a pouch at his belt. A pouch that was smaller than its contents, Ezra noted, but after dimensional portals, demons and aliens from a different dimension, what was a major break of the laws of physics, right?

 

Kain threw the vial at Master Kenobi, who caught it by reflex.

"What is this?" he asked.

"A healing draught. - Kain replied - That should restore him enough."

The two Forcefuls looked at him in disbelief.

"Just pour it down his throat and be done with it!" Kain growled.

"Are you insane?! Don't you know you're not supposed to give anything by mouth to an unconscious person?!" Ezra protested.

"Enough of your insolence, whelp!" Kain yelled, taking a step forward, a murderous expression on his face. Janos grabbed him discreetly by an arm and shook his head, and somehow this seemed to calm him down a little bit.

"Time is of the essence: we need to find this dimension's Balance Guardian before the minions of the Elder God do."he forced himself to explain, pinching the bridge of his nose as if to relieve a headache.

 

"I am here." Luke announced, appearing suddenly at Kain's side. Ezra had not seen him move from his sentry post, and neither had the two aliens, at least judging from their surprised expression.

"How did you...?!" Kain exclaimed, glaring at the boy.

"It's a gift. Moving unnoticed really helps when all the kids in town call you names and want to stick you in a dumpster because your gran was a slave." Luke replied with a shrug.

"Are you really another me?" he asked straight away, without giving Kain any time to react.

"Yes and no. - Kain replied after a brief hesitation - We hold the same cosmic role, but I was never like you, and hopefully you will never become like me." he added, lips curving in what could be interpreted as a smile.

Luke seemed to be satisfied with the answer. He nodded to himself and smiled back.

"I'm Luke Skywalker." he declared, extending his right hand for a handshake.

Kain gave it an alarmed glance, then decided to ignore the implicit invitation and took out his sword again.

"Are you ready to take up your place?" he asked.

"No, but what other option I have? - Luke replied, with brutal candour - And then you guys will teach me, right?" he added, glancing first at the two of them and then at Master Kenobi.

"Of course, child." Janos declared immediately, ruffling the boy's blond hair with his three-fingered, leathery hand in an affectionate gesture.

Kain sighed and rolled his eyes. "What use would be a Balance Guardian who is not able to uphold their duty?" he said.

"What do I need to do?" Luke asked, eyeing the sword with apprehension. White fire had started to wreathe it from the hilt to the tip, lending it an even creepier air.

"Prick your finger on the tip. It should suffice." Kain replied.

 

"Luke! Don't do it!" both Ezra and Master Kenobi called. Ezra even ran to stop him, but Janos managed to grab him and keep him in a careful but still unbreakable hold against his chest. Ezra tried to struggle, but the man seemed made of durasteel, in spite of his kind looks.

"Trust me, guys. I know what I am doing. I think..." Luke declared, then touched the tip of the sword, his breath hitching when the sharp tip nicked him. Nothing happened for a moment, then the white fire leapt at him, running along his finger, then his arm, then engulfing his whole body.

 

Master Kenobi was running, his blue saber lighted and ready to strike, but Kain just raised a hand and grabbed him with a tendril of telekinesis, leaving him to dangle in the air.

"No!" Ezra yelled. It was not supposed to end like that, it was not supposed to happen, but there was nothing he could do, except one thing, one that Kanan would never condone, one that could put his soul at risk. But was his soul worth the price of his comrades' lives? It was definitely not, Ezra told himself and reached out and down with the Force, looking for something, anything that would help.

 

He found life.

Tens of small creatures, some asleep for the day, some awake and alert, hunting or evading others in subterranean chambers that never saw the light of the Suns, and water, lots of water. The river in whose former bed they stood had not died, had just moved down below, where the Suns could not reach it. Ezra called upon it, knowing without knowing how that it would answer to his call, and it bubbled up, cracking layers of rock as it went, until it sprouted in the light like a watery shoot through the parched soil.

 

Ezra jerked his head, just about the only thing he could move while in Janos' grasp, and impelled it, aiming it at Kain.

It reared like a snake and shot forwards, hitting the man like a broadside. He yelped and let Master Kenobi go as he transformed into mist and flowed away, out of range.

Ezra twisted in Janos' weakened grasp as he too cursed in surprise and slammed the back of his head in the blue alien's face as hard as he could. There was a wet crack and a yelp and suddenly Ezra was free. He stepped away from the cursing man and sent the water crashing after him even as he scanned the area for Kain's presence.

"There!" he exclaimed, sighting him as he reformed. He pulled the water back towards himself with a sweeping gesture of his hand, then drew it into a ball and rolled it around against his own aura, positioning it for another attack. 

 

"Ezra, stop!"a voice yelled, ringing strangely through him.

He held off the attack for a moment and turned. Luke was standing close by, still wreathed in white fire, still burning but alive, and as he looked the boy absorbed the fire within himself, until only his eyes and hands were still ablaze, and then closed his eyes and tightened his fists and the fire was gone, as if it had never been there. He was fine.

"They are not our enemies, Ezra. I promise. - Luke continued - They can help. Please, let the water go." he pleaded, but there was something in his voice and in his aura, something commanding, something powerful, and suddenly Ezra found that he had no desire to antagonise him.

He let go on the water, letting it drop to the floor and run back beneath the earth.

All of a sudden he felt terribly tired as if he'd been fighting for days, or weeks. Forever, really. His knees folded on their own, hitting the dirt. He didn't think he'd have the strength to get back up for a while.

 

"Luke, are you alright, my boy?" Master Kenobi asked, wrapping him in a tight hug.

"I am, Uncle. Better, I am awake. And soon you will be too." Luke replied, hugging him back just as fiercely.

"What do you mean?" Master Kenobi asked, suddenly alarmed.

"Conflict, Nature, States." Luke enumerated, pointing first at Maul, then at Ezra, then at Master Kenobi himself.

"You are the Guardians of the Circle." he added with a bright, wide smile.

 

"A Guardian, me?" Ezra said, a hysterical little laugh bubbling in his throat. He was but a street rat, and a terrible Jedi, increasingly more so with every passing day.

"Yes, you, whelp. - Kain grumbled, reforming next to him - It looks like the Chaos-aspected Guardians of this dimension will be quite the handful..." he drawled, shooting him a hard look.

"Chaos-aspected?" Ezra repeated, shivering despite the heat. Kanan had told him that Chaos and the Dark Side were evil, but it seemed like he couldn't steer away from them.

"There is nothing wrong with it, Ezra." Janos said, kneeling next to him and placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"Without some Chaos life would never kindle and evolve. Everything flows, Ezra. Everything changes. Don't be afraid of who you are." he added with a kind smile.

"Who I am...?" Ezra thought. He didn't know, really. Not anymore, but he knew that he could not abandon Luke, Master Kenobi and most of all Maul. He was supposed to help them fix everything. Deep down he understood that this meant leaving Kanan and the Ghost behind, but the pull on his spirit was inexorable, the call too compelling. The white fire beckoned, promising purpose.

"Alright." he told himself and reached out for the flame-wreathed blade.

"It doesn't burn..." he thought, then gripped it, slicing his palm against the edge and everything became white.

 

Ezra could feel every heartbeat, hear every growing root and leaf, perceive every silent breath of life all around him. Everything grew, and lived, and died, all at once, without pause, in turns cruel and innocent. Cliffs were ground into sand, which was layered into more cliffs. Water became vapour, became rain, and then sea again. Everything that lived would die and contribute to more life. It was sublime, vertiginous, neverending. Not peaceful, not at all, but tumultuous, full of the loftiest joy and the deepest heartbreak.

 

"I can't be this whirlwind and still be a Jedi." he managed to conceptualise.

"Then don't, child." a voice said, echoing with layers and layers of tones and accents.

A woman, red-robed, silver-eyed, sitting in a clearing between black trees. Black tattoos marked her eyes, brow and mouth. Ezra was pretty sure he'd seen her before, but where? A fragment of a memory pushed through his confusion: candles, sadness, a drawing, lovingly made.

"You... you are Maul's mother!" he exclaimed, hit by a sudden realisation.

"I am. - she admitted with a sad smile - Talzin of Dathomir, Matriarch of the Nightpeople. Your predecessor." she added with a curt nod.

"My... you were the previous Guardian of Nature?!" Ezra exclaimed.

"I was, my child. When I died, sixteen years ago, my power flew away from Dathomir and Sidious' influence, looking for a worthy host. In that same moment, a beautiful, perfect child was born: it was you, Ezra. In you my power found its new home." she explained.

"It has chosen well: you're brave and loyal and wild at heart. You will be a good Guardian." she commented, nodding solemnly.

"I... thanks. - he sputtered, completely flustered by the compliment.

"You will find your own way in time. For now the important thing is for you to allow yourself the time to explore what it means to be you and the luxury of making mistakes. You have much to learn..." she advised sternly, then her expression softened and a hint of tears appeared in her silver eyes.

"I wish I could teach you... I wish I could be there for you and my son." she whispered, extending a bony, long-fingered hand to caress Ezra's face. Her skin was soft like old leather and crackling with energy, green and redolent with herbs and magic. It felt so much like home and comfort that he wanted to cry.

"Did... did you know that Maul was the Conflict Guardian?" Ezra managed to ask nonetheless.

Mother Talzin nodded. "From the moment he drew his first breath. - she admitted - That's why Sidious took him and twisted him but never killed him. He didn't want the power to find another host." she continued, and a distressed shiver nearly dissolved her partially substantial form.

"We'll stop him. I will look after Maul for you. We'll look after each other." he promised, and on an impulse stepped forward and hugged her, nearly disappearing in the folds of her robe.

"Thank you, Ezra..." she replied. Her voice trembled a bit as she tentatively reciprocated the hug, then her presence faded and her substance dissipated between his fingers. One moment she was there, the next he was alone in the whiteness, and the next he was back in his body, kneeling on the dirt of the wadi.

 

"Feeling enlightened?" Kain asked, a grin on his face.

Ezra bit back his instinctive, rather rude response. Antagonising the guy who was helping them seemed like a bad idea, even though he was a bit of an asshole.

"Very. - he replied with a curt nod - Now if you excuse me..." he added with a gesture in Maul's direction.

"By all means." Kain replied with a sketchy nod, then turned to face Master Kenobi, ignoring him completely.

"Your turn, States." he announced, striding towards him.

 

Ezra shrugged and walked with purpose towards his target, pausing only to collect the blue vial from where Master Kenobi had dropped it on the floor. As he knelt next to Maul, that overwhelming sense of home, of family overtook him again, a thousand times stronger than the first time they had met on Malachor. They did belong together, there was no more questioning it. Maybe now that Kain's magic sword had awakened and purified them both they would stand a better chance of being close to each other without harming each other.

"Let's get this sorted, alright?" he whispered. He undid the hasty bandage Master Kenobi had wrapped around his shoulder, uncorked the vial and poured a small amount of the blue liquid on the wound. It sizzled a bit, then the tissue started to mend itself, regrowing at ridiculous speed, layer after layer. Ezra decided to ignore the absurdity of what he was seeing. Now that he was having a more thorough look at him, it was clear that he had taken a lot of damage, perhaps enough to kill someone else twice over. The rest of the content of the vial went on the exit wound on his back, then Ezra called for another and, once Janos threw a couple of vials at him, poured out judicious amounts of the healing liquid on the most serious injuries, adding his own power to that of the draught to straighten broken ribs and mend torn lungs.

 

"E-Ezra..." a voice called. Ezra startled, nearly dropping the vial he was working with. He had been so absorbed in the task of healing him that he had not even noticed that Maul had regained consciousness, at least partially, and was now looking at him with soft wonder. His eyes had turned a soft purple-gray, just a shade darker than his mother's. The white fire had done his job, cleansing Sidious' corruption out of his system. He didn't belong to the Emperor any longer. Only to them.

 

"Hey." he called back, a smile on his face.

"Why...?" Maul started to ask.

"You know why. - Ezra interrupted him - Did you really think I would have left you to die?" he asked.

Maul didn't say anything, but the look on his face was answer enough. Of course he had.

"Well, I would not. - Ezra continued - We're in this madness together, so you'd better get used to having me around."

"You don't have to do this." Maul protested. Ezra sighed. Technically he had, now, they were Guardians in the same Circle, bound by fate and duty. They would always be linked, no matter the distance, but he had decided upon this course of action way before realising this.

"I know, but I chose to do it anyway. Now drink this." he instructed, raising the vial towards his lips. More than half of its original content was left. "It should do, at least for the moment" he judged.

Maul eyed the blue liquid suspiciously, in a reflex of mistrust, then looked at Ezra and nodded, raising a shaky hand to take the vial.

" _I trust you, Ezra._ " he sent, downing the liquid in one go, even though the taste made him grimace.

The effort of talking and moving, even so little, proved too much after the fight. His eyes were closing on their own and the empty vial rolled out of his hand, but he tried to fight unconsciousness, clinging to Ezra's presence like a lifeline.

"I will still be here when you wake up. Rest now, I'll take care of you." Ezra whispered. Maul nodded, his sending made wordless by fatigue, but piled with gratitude and affection and love, then closed his eyes and was out like a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist bringing Mother Talzin back, even just as a ghost or a dream. She too deserved better.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready to meet the strangest, messiest, space-family in the Galaxy.
> 
> Warning: PTSD, casual attitude to violence.

Was it the headache that had woken him up? Was it the thirst, the feeling of soft blankets enveloping him, the sound of distant voices? Maul didn't quite know. As usual, his memories were a messy jumble of images without coherence. He felt like there was something different in the Force around him, maybe even something changed in him, but he was too disoriented to tell what for sure.

He was back on the Gauntlet, in his cabin, on his bed. That was all he knew. He had no memory of how he had gotten there after leaving it one last time to seek his fate. He had never though he'd be back.

 

Slowly, he shifted to a sitting position on the bed, pressing the heels of his hands over his eyes to relieve the stabbing headache, then gingerly rose to his feet. Everything spun madly around him, bleeding into a nauseating riot of swirling shapes and colours, but somehow he managed to keep to his feet, steadying himself by grabbing a rail mounted on the wall nearby until the moment of weakness passed.

 

His hand instinctively reached for his saberstaff, but when he hefted it he realised that there was something majorly wrong with it. So wrong that only half of it remained, again. This time the handle had not been melted through though, but neatly sliced in half by an insanely sharp and strong blade, the marks of its edge clearly visible like parallel scratches over the cortosis-infused durasteel.

"What the hell has happened to it?" he asked himself, his mind still too foggy to summon a coherent recollection.

 

There was only one way to find out he decided finally, grabbing his belt from the table next to his cot, only to realise that his trousers were actually missing.

"That would have been embarassing..." he chuckled to himself. Not that there was actually anything to see over there, since his synthetic bits were hidden away under a metal panel until needed, but still he didn't fancy going out to face a potential enemy in the nude. If they had not killed him yet, they probably could wait a few more minutes while he made himself decent.

 

He staggered across the room to the rack that held his clothes and picked up a fresh pair. Putting them on was not quite so simple, though, and at the end he had to sit on the bed in order not to topple. He felt giddy and wobbly, as if he was tipsy, but he had no memory of drinking a single drop of alcohol.

Finally clothed, he buckled his belt, clipped onto it what was left of his weapon and stood again, staggering out of the room.

 

He had not imagined the voices at least. There were several, all male, coming from the galley. He stalked to it, supporting himself against the wall as he went and trying to make as little noise as he could in spite of the situation. Metal boots on metal planks could hardly be completely silent even when the wearer was not feeling like a confused heap of wreckage. It was supremely frustrating, after training so painstakingly to be a hunter in the shadows, but there were distinctive advantages to that arrangement, in terms of how hard he could kick someone's ass. Those idiotic pirates who dared to raid his ship would know fairly soon how hard.

 

Cautiously he turned a corner, and the smell of food wafting from the galley hit him like a punch in the face. His stomach started to growl so loudly that he worried that the invaders would hear it. He couldn't remember when was the last time he actually had any food. He was absolutely famished and whatever the invaders were cooking smelled really nice. He'd have to make sure not to make too much of a mess of the galley. Maybe if he was lucky he'd be able to eat whatever was left of their meal without having to pick any body parts out of it.

 

The conversation seemed to have stopped, over there. Maybe the invaders had sensed him. He could have used the element of surprise this time, but in the end it didn't matter. He'd find a way to solve the problem nonetheless. He always did.

He gave one last look to the corridor, trying to spot an ambush but the coast seemed clear.

"Amateurs..." he commented to himself, then hit the button for the pneumatic switch and hurled himself in, ready to strike whichever enemy came closest, but the situation inside made him stop dead in his tracks just beyond the threshold.

 

Ezra was standing by the stove, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was cooking something with Luke's help, and there were smiles on both their faces. Obi-Wan was sitting at the table, sipping tea from one of the chipped glazed bowls he had managed to salvage from his mother's place on Dathomir, his cloak thrown on the back of a chair, his tunic slightly loosened at the neck, his hair mussed. It was absurd, totally nuts, but it felt good, no better, it felt like the home he never really managed to have.

 

He wanted this, he realised with sudden lucidity, cursing the cruelty of his mind for taunting him with illusory visions of what he most desired, just to remind him that they were unattainable. Because it had to be an hallucination, even though it was by far one of the most detailed he'd ever had, right? It would not make any sense otherwise. Why would they be here of their own will, acting as if it was totally normal, as if they belonged there, with him?

 

"Maul! You're awake!" Ezra exclaimed, setting down the wooden spoon on a plate and moving towards him. Maul instinctively took a step back, hitting the wall. The wall was good, he thought. People wouldn't be able to stab him in the back while he hallucinated.

"Is there something wrong?" Ezra asked, halting a few steps away. The others were watching him, caught between welcome and worry, expectant. So many things were off that hedidn't even know where to start from in replying. Everything was different, better, but not real and he wasn't sure he cared what was real and what was not anymore. He wasn't even sure he was really awake or alive. Maybe this was the afterlife. At the moment he could not care less.

 

The door opposite, leading to the sternside cabins opened with a pneumatic hiss, letting two more people in the galley. One was a tall, blue-skinned, black-winged man dressed in a white, somewhat Jedi-like tunic. He looked fit and out-of-place, but his Force was so calm and peaceful that he automatically classified him as "not an immediate danger". The other... the other was the man he had battled in the wadi, he of the strange sword, the one who had killed him and whom he had killed in return.

 

Fragments of memories coalsesced together, forming a coherent, if absurd, whole. The demons, and the run through the wadi at his nemesis' side, and Luke's house, and then more running, and the expression on Kenobi's face when he had kissed him, the taste of his lips, and the battle and that sense of purpose, the Dark Side purified, and then the stranger, that one last battle and the white fire at the end... but it was not an end, no. It was a beginning: the light of the sword, illuminating the inside of his spirit, showing him all the residues of Sidious left in the cracks and fractures, like foul slime that twisted and corrupted and threatened to turn him into a copy of his tormentor, that forced him to push people away to protect them from what he could become. There was fighting again, much easier with that knowledge, until nothing of Sidious remained within him but more, fresher scars, until he was finally free, finally his own person, like he had never been before. He would have been happy to end it like that, but there was yet more: Ezra, his voice, his touch, his presence, a promise. Hope. And home, finally.

 

He staggered with the sudden rush of memories, nearly falling to the ground, but Ezra caught him and shored him up.

"I've got you." he whispered, wrapping an arm around his waist and reaching out through the Force, throwing him a much-needed lifeline to reality. He sighed as he settled thankfully into both, allowing himself a moment to try and recover. He knew Ezra wouldn't begrudge him that or use it against him later.

 

"Didn't... didn't I kill you?" he managed to say, lifting his gaze towards the stranger. His voice sounded even raspier than usual with thirst and disuse.

"You came closest than anyone save Raziel in the last thousands of years. - the stranger replied amiably enough - A truly noteworthy feat, especially after fighting all those demons." he added with a sketchy half-bow. Maul looked at him, slightly incredulous, then shook his head.

"I'm a bit of a one-trick batha, I am afraid. I am good at killing things. That's all." he retorted, trying to shrug. Nothing properly hurt, but every organic bit of him ached and he felt completely wiped out.

He had so many questions he wanted to ask, starting from who the two newcomers were, where was the Gauntlet travelling to, and how he was still alive, but eventually settled on the most pressing one.

"Can we just sit down? I think I'm going to fall."

 

Minutes later he was sitting at the rough table in the galley, a bowl of tea and a plate of still-steaming, delicious stew and rice in front of him. Ezra was sitting next to him, close enough that he just needed to reach out with a hand to touch him and verify that he was real, and the others were sitting all around the rest of the table with plates and cups in front of them, bathed in the orangish light of the overhead lamp. It had been years since the last time he had not been the only person sitting there, and even though he barely knew most of them, the Force told him that they belonged there, with him. That they were connected, somehow. He could feel their Force thrumming through his very being, as if on some level they were just parts of a whole. They were an odd ensemble, that was for sure.

 

The blue man, Janos, was one of the most Light-sided people he had ever seen in his life. Everything about him exhuded calm, patience and an iron will to withstand all adversities, and what's worse, he was incredibly friendly and entusiastic about their forced bonding on the ship. Maul could well see why. Solitude clung to him like a wet cloak, making him hungry, desperate for contact. "He was the last of his kind... like you." something inside him told him. That didn't make him any less irritating, but that strange kinship at least prevented him from wanting to punch him every other time he opened his mouth because of his damned idealism.

 

Kain instead was rather Dark-Sided, especially for a supposed creature of Balance, all high-handed arrogance and sharp, cynical wit. He seemed properly ruthless in the pursuit of his strategic goals and deviously cunning in the tactical department, but Maul could still sense that there was something contrived about his posturing, something brittle and hollow. 

They were a company of the beaten and the broken, but it was still better than being beaten, broken and alone.

 

To begin with, Maul didn't contribute to the conversation much, too busy stuffing his face with Ezra's and Luke's cooking to do much more than nodding and occasionally replying to direct questions, but he listened to the others as they discussed their supposed mission to bring Balance to the Multiverse and what happened in the two days he had been out cold, recuperating from yet another near-death experience.

 

Guardians, crumbling Pillars, Messiahs and sentient swords... All of it seemed a bit outlandish to Maul, but he had seen the portals and experienced the purifying fire of the sword on his own flesh and spirit, and at any rate he was all too happy about the developments to complain. He had a purpose now, a reason to keep on fighting, he had companions in this journey. He would never be alone again. None of them would be. And Sidious would fall before them. It was definitely more than enough for him to subscribe wholeheartedly to the cause.

 

"So, where are we going next?" he asked at the end, pushing his plate away and settling comfortably against the backrest of the chair. After two platesfuls of stew and plenty of water he was feeling much better, almost ready to ride again. Give it another full night's rest and he'd be as good as new.

"Alderaan." Kenobi replied with a sigh. He didn't seem entirely happy about it, but then again, he had been acting a bit strange for the whole dinner. Maybe he wasn't as ready to suspend disbelief as the rest of them.

 

Luke and Ezra had taken to the new arrangement like fish to water, and he was quite used to magic and outlandish rituals, thanks to his mother, but for the Jedi must have been harder to accept that the Dark Side was a necessary and vital part of the Universe and that his life was now bound to Maul's, of all people. Or maybe it had to do with their last conversation and that stolen kiss. Kenobi had not been able to look his way for more than two seconds in a row, but he could sense no hostility from him. Maybe he was just embarassed. In hindsight, Maul knew he shouldn't have done that, it just made things more complicated, harder to rationalise and explain, but he had thought he was going to die and the opportunity had just been too tempting to miss.

 

"What for?" he asked, banishing those thoughts from his head for the moment.

"We're going to get my twin sister!" Luke replied in his stead.

"I didn't know you had one." Maul retorted, frowining slightly.

"Me neither! - Luke revealed, nodding enthusiastically - Uncle Obi-Wan told me just yesterday. I mean, I knew that there was something missing as soon as I touched the Reaver, but I didn't know, know, if you get my meaning." he added.

"We kept them separate to prevent the Emperor or Vader from capturing them both." Kenobi added, anticipating his question.

"She's the other half of this Universe's Balance." Kain butted in, looking and sounding bored.

"And which of you Jedi is looking after her?" Maul asked, refilling his glass with water and taking a sip.

There was a moment of silence. "No one that I know of. I entrusted her to my good friend Senator Bail Organa." Kenobi replied.

Maul very nearly spat his water out."What?! You left her right under the Emperor's nose?!" he exclaimed.

"She is hidden in plain sight. It seemed like a good idea at the time." Kenobi insisted.

Maul was on the verge of saying something quite rude about the cunning, or lack thereof, of the Jedi Order, but Ezra placed a hand over his arm and he paused, transfixed by the novelty of the gesture, by the ease and familiarity of it.

 

"Ahsoka was looking after her from a distance." Ezra intervened.

"What?!" Kenobi exclaimed, looking flabbergasted once again.

"Lady Tano?" Maul butted in, intrigued by the coincidence. A stab of regret and shame pierced him at the thought of her. She too deserved an apology for his behaviour on Malachor. With the spirits whispering in his ear all the time, it had been incredibly hard to behave rationally, but that was no excuse.

"Yeah, well, we worked together for a bit and she was with the Rebellion, so I asked her about Leia and..." Ezra started to narrate, but Luke interrupted him.

"Wait, wait, wait! So you know my sister?!"

"Yeah, I kind of do." Ezra admitted, toying with the hair on his nape to hide his embarrassment. "She is really cool. And brave. A lot like you, really." he added, failing to hide a furious blush.

"Oh dear..." Maul thought, pretending to take another drink of water to hide his smirk, but by the look on Kenobi's face he had only partially succeeded. Maybe they could take bets on which one of the Skywalker siblings Ezra liked best.

 

"Forgive my interruption, but what does this Lady Tano look like?" Janos intervened.

"Beautiful and terrible like dawn on a battlefield." 

The words escaped Maul's lips before he was properly conscious of them and were received with a moment of stunned silence.

"Wow..." Luke commented, whistling to himself, while Kenobi gaped like a fish.

"A bit taller than me, orange-and-cream skinned, blue-eyed, with white and blue montrals." Ezra saved the day before more embarrassing questions could be asked. He made a gesture like cat eras above his head to signify the latter and a light of recognition flashed in Janos' eyes.

"Also beautiful, brave and kind. Why do you ask?" Ezra concluded, sighing and lowering his eyes.

"Because she is one of us." Maul replied, caught by a sudden flash of certainty.

 

He still remembered the days of the Fall of Mandalore: he and Lady Tano had fought against each other over and over as she sought to avenge the Duchess, and then the  world had started burning all around them and Sidious' trap snapped around the Jedi, making the Clones turn against their Jedi commanders. They had fought side by side then, and together they had made it to safety against all odds. At the time he had not quite known why he had decided to throw in his lot with her as Saxon turned against him and Kast died, he only knew that she felt comforting, familiar, that she made him feel less like a hopeless wreck and more like a person.

 

In the end it had not lasted, they had been too broken and raw to endure much undeserved happiness, but it had been good while it had lasted, every moment of it, from their endless games of chess, to the evenings spent reading together in companionable silence, to the times they beat the crap out of each other in training or screwed each other raw against any available surface to exorcise the grief, the anger, the loneliness, to the times when it was all too much and they just curled together in the tightest ball of unclothed sadness they could manage and just basked in each other's presence and warmth, shielding each other from their nightmares. Maybe it wasn't complety healthy, but it had felt wonderful. They could have been good for each other, they could have been each other's support and solace, but they had not been in the right mental place to realise what could have been and in the end maybe it had been better that way, but he had missed her fiercely, for years, almost as much as he had missed Kenobi.

 

"She is the Guardian of Energy." Kain confirmed.

"Was." Ezra amended.

"Wait, what?" Maul thought, a wave of nausea assailing him all of a sudden. Had he committed the irreparable again? Had he caused the death of a person he cared for with his idiocy?

"Is. - Kain insisted - We wouldn't keep on having visions of her if she was dead."

"The Sith Temple of Malachor collapsed on top of her. There is no way she can be alive, trapped in there." Ezra insisted, but Maul was already running out of the room, towards the cockpit. Trying to, at least. Memories were churning in his head, drawing to the surface some of the worst moments in the shitshow of his life and overlaying them on top of the corridors of the Gauntlet.

 

_...trapped in the tunnels. Thirst and hunger and agony. Desolation. Fear. Betrayal. Nowhere to escape, no way to make it. He was hanging at the edge of death, holding on to life with all he had even though it hurt so much that death would be a mercy, he didn't even know why. Or maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was already dead and this was hell, his punishment for failing his Master, the spirits. Everyone. Maybe he deserved this... this madness, this desperation, a world where there was nothing left for him but pain and the horror of living. No one was going to come for him. He was not worth saving, not worth remembering. Everything he had ever though he was had been a lie. He was nothing. He never mattered... Death would have been too merciful. That life was his punishment and the only thing he could do was take it, as always._

 

Something wrapped around him, warm and solid and real and a voice started whispering at his ear.

"You're safe. We've got you. It's over now." they said softly. Maul held onto the sound of that voice and slowly managed to pull himself out of those terrible memories, until he found himself kneeling in the middle of a corridor, wrapped around Ezra like a child with their favourite toy, breathing hard as if he'd just run for miles.

 

"What... what was that?" Luke's voice rang, high like a bell.

Maul lifted his head from Ezra's shoulder and looked up. Every remaining member of their team was standing in that corridor. Luke looked like he was going to puke, so pale he had shades of green around the edges, Janos too had paled to a lighter shade of sky-blue and even Kain looked affected for all his tough-as-nails attitude, an expression of awful realisation and dismay on his harsh features.

Obi-Wan stood a few feet further away, propped against the wall as if his own legs couldn't support him, staring at the two of them with an empty, desolate expression.

 

"Those... those were your memories." Kenobi whispered with awful certainty.

"You... you've seen them." Maul managed to rasp. He had not lost it so violently since... well, for a while. Savage had still been at his side back then, like Ezra was now. Even though his mother had fixed him, those thirteen years had always found a way of breaking through the seal. The thought of Ahsoka going through that or something like that in turn had been enough to shatter it completely, causing a total recall. It had been as if he was still there, down to the most minute detail, to the point that stomach was heaving with nausea at the memory of the smell of that place, and phantom pains were shooting up the stump of his spine and the mass of scars across his middle.

 

"We have." Kenobi admitted, finally looking away.

"That's why mind-linking with a nutter is never a good idea." Maul joked. He knew that the joke was off and not funny in the least but he was past caring.

"Help me stand, Ezra, please." he sent, mind to mind.

The boy nodded and helped him up, doing most of the job once again. He was shaking so badly that he could barely walk but somehow they managed to stumble to the command console. He heaved himself to the command post and punched in the coordinates to Malachor, overriding the previous route to Alderaan. Only then he started to breathe more freely and the shakes started to subside.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, well, Ahsoka and Maul got it on, at some point. I couldn't resist


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi folks, I still have some chapters left of this to upload, but I haven't written anything new in a while.  
> Apologies to all.  
> In the meantime I hope you will appreciate the remaining updates.
> 
> Warnings: language, PTSD, implied gore, implied abuse, violence and threat, depictions of chronic illness
> 
> Kain is an asshole, but that is no news.

"What do you think you are doing?" Kain barked as the hyperdrive computer started to calculate the new route.

Maul gave him a confused look.

"We're going to rescue Ahsoka." Ezra replied for him.

"That's not the course we agreed." Kain argued.

"The plan has changed. We're not going to leave her there a moment more." Maul managed to rasp.

"We are, instead. The Circle can survive without an Energy Guardian, not without half of Balance." Kain growled, irritation clear in the way he way his brow furrowed even further and his jaw clenched.

"The Princess needs to be extracted, brought to safety and awakened to her role. This is all that matters at the moment." his tone was final, his voice held a hint of a warning growl, but Maul just squared his shoulders and lifted is chin in defiance. He had had his fill of bending to the whims of a master and seeing people he cared for suffer for it. It was not going to happen again as long as he lived.

"Sorry, not to me it is not. She's been in there too long already. Way too long." he declared.

He could hear Kain's teeth grind together in anger, and his sword-hand twitched, no doubt itching to close around the hilt of the Reaver. Maul had the feeling that he didn't get antagonised very often. Well, he thought, he'd better get used to it.

"I am not going to allow you to jeopardise the fate of this dimension to save your paramour, Conflict." he warned, taking another step further.

"I have a name." Maul growled in turn.

"I care not a whit about your name or your motives." Kain hissed, baring sharp fangs.

"Contrary to you, I see the larger goal and what needs to be done for its sake. Now get out of my way."

"Think what you will. You can change that route over my dead body." Maul replied, pushing himself to his feet, even though he knew that if it came to blows he wouldn't even be able to touch him, in his present condition.

Kain took another step forward, pushing Ezra out of the way.

"You seem to value your life very little, Conflict." Kain spat. His power was bearing down on him like an avalanche, vast and ancient, filling the air with electricity, so much that he could taste it at the back of his mouth with every breath he took.

His mind pressed on him too, reminding him of his weakness, expecting him to give up, to bend to his will and obey.

He would not, he vowed. He had been a slave for too long and now that the Force, or something close enough, had set him free, he was not going to let anybody take his freedom away from him.

"And you to value your plans too much, you scheming bastard. Here, have a taste if your own medicine!" Maul challenged.

Those memories were still barely contained, pushing towards the surface of his mind. All it took was to stop from actively holding them off and they filled his mind to the brim once more, but this time he was expecting it, he was in control, and he hurled them as hard as he could towards Kain, using them as a battering ram to crash through his mind-shields and crack him open like a nut.

 

Pain, betrayal, desolation... he channeled all of it, all over again, all the years of service and sacrifice, all the twisted love and devotion he had borne his tormentor, the shock and agony of being abandoned and discarded like so much trash. He made him watch.

Kain tried to step away, but those memories were like a mire, sucking him in even further the more he fought against it.

Maul could almost taste his panic, the horror he had seen on his face in the corridor made a thousand times stronger.

" _You are just like him._ " Maul stabbed the words in his mind like knives.

" _You'd do the same as he did._ "

He could hear a faint scream of pain in the distance, smell water and blood.

An inchoate string of memories floated close, faded with suppression. He pulled on it hard, dragging it to the forefront and the barrier that contained it shattered like spun glass, spilling its content all over their linked minds.

 

_Falling, bleeding, betrayal. A thousand years of loyalty and devotion, all his dreams of a glorious future, snapped off in a moment. The noise... churning, whirling water, a traitor's end._

_Panic. Terror intense enough to overcome the torpor of shock and blood loss. He throws his hands in front of his face in a futile attempt to protect  himself, but the water feels as hard and unyielding as stone as he impacts with it. Pain like he had never imagined flows all over him. He is burning, drowning, falling all at once, unable to breathe, to think, to make it stop. He screams and screams even though he has no more air, no more voice. Instinctively he reaches out with his mind towards the person who had been his source of strength and purpose, the object of his devotion, the center of his universe, but where that dark sun used to be, now there is just a wall, solid, unassailable. His liege, his god, his only love had abandoned him, and that hurt more than everything else._

 

" _You already have!_ " Maul hissed. 

Something deep in his mind warned him that he should not kill him, that he should stay his hand, but the voice of anger was much louder, and it wanted blood, revenge for that poor sod, payback for that desolating loneliness, for that betrayed love...

" _How could you?!_ " he roared.

 

" _I HAD NO CHOICE!_ "

Kain's mental voice resonated like a gong, ragged and raw with pain.

More and more images flowed between them,  more and more confused, multiple overlapping futures converging into nothingness, into oblivion, into utter destruction, into the utter futility of everything that they had ever endeavoured. There was only one chance to prevent that from happening, a chance as slim as that of flipping a coin and have it land on its edge. The Reaver, Material and Spirit, had to be finally reunited. That was the only weapon that could shatter the chains of Fate and give him the power to save his word and all the others. That meant that Raziel had to die.

One life for all the billions and billions that ever existed. The choice should have been as easy as it was inev itable.

 

Now that the dam had broken, another stream of memories converged upon them, unstoppable like a flood, yet burning like fire, and that man, Raziel, was at the center of them all: strong, confident, trustworthy, painfully beautiful, the only refuge and solace of his life, the only one who could hope to stop him, his only equal, even though he could have never admitted it, not even to himself.

The one who destroyed him, the one who saved him, fixed him, lifting the corruption from his soul, lifting the veil from his eyes. It was ironic how the realisation that he had always loved him came upon him in the very moment when he lost him forever...

 

" _I had no choice..._ " 

This time the sending sounded almost like a choked sob and Maul found out that all his anger had disappeared as if it had never existed. 

"You have now."  he whispered, trying to sound as supportive as Ezra did to him.

Kain might have been an asshole, but he was his asshole now, his responsability as much as the others. He tried to reach out for him, but their minds were wrenched apart in a violent, desperate heave.

The next thing he knew he was impacting hard against the side wall of the cockpit. His already-mangled back hit against the metal, wrenching a yelp of startled agony from his lips. He slid to a heap at the foot of the wall, breathing hard through clenched teeth. His spine felt like it was on fire. Waves of agony rippled all along it, saturating his perception. It took all of his self-control to keep the pain in the background and keep functioning even though his carcass had had more than enough and wanted nothing better than to shut down for a while.

 

It couldn't have taken him more than a couple of seconds to refocus on his surroundings, but that must have been an interesting couple of seconds: Kenobi was standing in front of him, saber at the ready, wreathed in silver-blue light, blocking Kain's path towards him.

"You're never going to harm him again. Never. Do you understand?!" he was saying, his voice tense and steely. He was furious and his Force swirled wildly, wrapping around Maul like a shield, no, better, like an embrace. A joy so fierce and sharp that it was almost like pain filled him. Tears rose unbidden to his eyes, but he blinked them away, unwilling to let the others know how much that protection meant to him.

 

"Do not delude yourself, States. The only reason why the two of you are still alive is that it would take too long to wait for your replacements to grow into their power." Kain growled, dripping with fury and agony. He hurt, and was utterly furious that he did, that he was as weak and fragile as anyone else when it came to the fate of those he cared for, and he wanted to hurt others in turn. He was too broken to realise that causing more pain to the available targets would not heal his own or bring any kind of closure.

Maul knew how that felt, he had done the same for years, decades, all to no avail.

 

Ezra had pulled out his saber in turn and was shielding Luke as well as he could, and Janos was half-crouching, hands in loose fists at his sides, ready to spring.

The tension was rising by the second as Kenobi stared Kain down, refusing to concede even an inch of ground, and it threatened to boil over. For a moment Maul saw genuine murder in Kain's golden eyes and feared that he had pushed him too far and that it would end in a raging bloodbath, in pain and death for those he loved, and once again there was nothing he could do, but suddenly the tension snapped and Kain just flashed out of the room, disappearing as if in a pass of magic.

Maul let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

 

"Maul! Force, are you alright?" Ezra was at his side almost immediately, worry pouring out of him in waves.

It took him a few deep breaths to be in control enough to reply.

"I had worse. I'll survive." he managed to say. They both knew it was true.

"What just happened? What was all of that about?" Kenobi asked. He had put the saber away, but his Force was still flaring all around him, pulsing in time with his accelerated heartbeat.

"I pushed him too far. Made him remember things he wanted to forget." Maul managed to rasp. That was all he was ever going to say. The rest if the story wasn't his to tell, but judging from Janos' expression, at least someone knew enough to have a pretty good idea of what had happened.

They exchanged looks and a name floated between their minds, tinged with sorrow and affection. Maul nodded and closed his eyes, biting back a gasp of pain at the movement. He was well and truly fucked up and would remain so for at least a couple of days, if not more.

 

"I'll go and try to get him to see reason." Janos offered, rubbing his face with his hands to hide incipient tears.

"Thank you Janos." Kenobi said with a curt bow. He looked still strung so high that he might snap at any moment.

"Don't mention it, Obi-Wan. Kain is my kin, my responsibility, but you are too now. I won't let any of you come to harm." the winged alien replied, then sighed, and stalked out of the room in pursuit of his compatriot.

Kenobi sighed in turn and hunkered down next to Ezra, while Luke surveyed the whole scene with a wide-eyed, rather terrified expression.

 

"Thank you..." Maul managed to rasp. Turning his head towards him required large amounts of concentration, but it was definitely worth the effort just to look at him with the new knowledge that he was willing to stare death in the face to protect him.

"It's alright." Kenobi whispered, taking Maul's hand in his, even though judging from his expression he didn't look alright himself. He look worried, tired and most of all incredibly sorry.

"It was not your fault. I... I was too messed up to see it, but it never was. I... " Maul couldn't help the tears this time, or the shame for what he had done. Now that he understood what he had taken from him, he wished he had never been to Mandalore.

Kenobi managed a fragile smile.

"I know. And I know you regret it. I can feel it." his free hand rested briefly on his chest.

"We can't fix the past, but, for what matters, you're never going to be left behind like that. No one will. Never again." he promised, squeezing his hand gently, tears streaming down his face. Maul could feel the weight of that promise, of the implications that came with it. Being a family, the four of them and Ahsoka, once they found her. Acceptance, forgiveness, wiping the slate clean and rewriting their story with a better ending.

 

Force, he wanted that, but it was too good to be real, and the knee-jerk reaction of trying to push others away was too hard to suppress.

"You don't have to do this. You owe me nothing." he warned, slipping his hand from the Jedi's grasp and balling it into a fist on his lap.

" _If you do, you'll never be able to get rid of me."_ he added through the Force.

Maybe if he knew he was playing for keeps, he wouldn't be so hasty to make promises he didn't really mean to keep to assuage his misplaced sense of guilt. There was only so much more he could take, and rejection by him, after a promise like that, after being offered what he needed most, was not one of them.

 

_"That was never really in the cards, was it? We were always meant to be linked."_ Kenobi retorted, a sad smile appearing on his face.

_"Even corrupted, the Force pushed us on each other's path, over and over again. I am tired of pushing other people away. I want this to work, just as you do. Even though it seems absurd, I know it can be good for us. We deserve something good after all we've been through, don't we?"_ he argued.

"We owe this to each other." Kenobi insisted, out loud.

 

It was not just about him, Maul realised, it was also about Kenobi's grief and loneliness, about long years of waiting for death because there was nothing left worth living, no reason to go on, until their last meeting on Tattooine. It was about the hope he had unwittingly given him. Kenobi didn't want to let go of it. No more than Maul himself wanted to.

He just needed to reach out and take the chance that was being offered to both of them and make things new and good and right, like when they had fought together, like when they had kissed, like the idea of giving his life for him. In truth, he had already made his choice long ago. He only had to stand by it.

 

His hand shook pitifully, but Kenobi's was also trembling when he grasped it, and it was no wonder. It was scary, but they couldn't pull back more than a star could alter its course. They were each other's birthright. This was what they were always meant to be.

 

  


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: mentions of attempted suicide, mentions of abuse (including child abuse), depictions of chronic illness and disability, mild language, guilt, grief.
> 
> Also, it's quite sappy.
> 
> I hope you can still enjoy it.

The previous two days had been like a strange dream for Obi-Wan, made implausible by how comforting and satisfying it was.

Belonging had replaced loneliness, kind words had replaced the neverending silence of his last fifteen years and hope had banished despair. Not everything needed to be lost, death was not the only answer. There was still a chance of a future beyond the grim, cynical duty that Yoda had allotted him. Old wounds could be mended, at least some of them, and preposterous, beautiful possibilities could become real.

 

He didn't deserve any of it, not after all the mistakes he had made, and even though part of him knew it was wrong, even though he had been trained to run away from intimacy and attachment, he couldn't help but cling to it with all he was and every passing hour it became easier. The white fire of Kain's sword had changed him, making him see past the dictates of the Jedi Order and deeper into the awesome, terrifying truth of reality.

 

He marveled at the feel of other minds touching his, at the links that bound them without trapping them. The Force linked all living beings. They were just more tightly knit, not just to each other, but to the fabric of the Force itself, serving as nodes to different aspects of it, and Luke was at the center of it, shining like a Sun, the lynchpin that held the web together in harmony.

 

The Force itself tasted different, clearer, purer, crisp like a newly made bed or a sunny winter morning. Most of all it felt whole: not stark Light and Dark, but blending all the shades of the spectrum and everything in between.The Force was all. They all belonged there, Jedi, Sith, everyone in between. Going to war about it was meaningless. It had always been and it had caused nothing but suffering for eons, in a neverending cycle of hatred and mutual destruction that served no one and twisted everything it touched, turning it into pain.

 

Well, no more, he told himself. No more hatred, no more loneliness, no more despair, no more loss. The Force had given him a second chance, and he was not going to let it to waste by clinging to old, toxic patterns, even though it would mean making himself vulnerable. He owed it to himself and to his bondmates... his family really. He already loved Luke like his own child, and it wouldn't take long for Ezra to gain a similar place in his heart. The Force had bound them together, they were his responsibility now, and he was not going to repeat past mistakes by pretending he was just a mentor to them. He was more. He wanted to be, even though he could never replace Ezra's dead parents or Luke's aunt and uncle whom they had left back on Tattooine, where they would be safe. He wanted to gain his own place in their hearts.

 

That left Maul, and there things became complicated, as usual when the Sith was concerned. They had to work together, that much was clear. That said, he could just ignore what had happened in the back of that speeder and treat him like an uneasy ally, establish an arms-length truce and settle for a distant "I don't actively hate you anymore".

It would be easy, and safe, and it would be a lie, wrong and cruel, towards both of them. 

In its blind attempts to mend the Net in spite of the dogmas that had twisted them, the Force had linked them too tightly for indifference.

 

The former Sith belonged to him, just as much as the two young men did. Maybe he always had, even when they were enemies, even for the long years in which he had assumed he was dead by his hand, and yet he was the opponent he had always imagined to face when performing velocities and forms, the implicit benchmark against which he had measured his prowess.

 

In spite of what Maul had done to him, his resentment towards him had abated in the years after the fall of the Order, but "not hate" didn't quite explain the what he had felt when the former Sith told him that the perspective of dying for him made him happy, or when he had kissed him goodbye and leapt to his fate. The longing, the loss, the grief, they had been real, and so had been the joy at finding him still alive.

 

Obi-Wan had refused to name that feeling, but it had already grown in the couple of days since that fateful dawn. He had spent most of them sitting next to Maul's bed, watching him sleep, as if with his presence he could make sure that he would keep on breathing, that his hearts would keep on beating. The worst had been avoided by the strangers' weird drugs, but he wanted to make sure that he would live, that they would have their new chances.

 

He had only just left the room for a cup of tea when Maul burst into the kitchen, clearly disoriented, but still ready and willing to raise hell. The look of confused happiness and longing on his face when he had seen them share that familiar space had sent a stab of longing through him too. All of them, eating and talking together at the table, in peace, with the orange glow of the lamps and the smell of homecooked food in the air... he wanted that with them.

He wanted to see Maul smile and look like that simple happening was heaven on earth, he wanted to hear him laugh, and not in a slightly deranged, loud and showy way like when they fought, but quietly, self-consciously, as if he wasn't sure he was allowed to, but couldn't help it.

Maybe he wasn't properly handsome, with those stark tattoos, sharp features and sharper attitude, but he surely was fascinating, especially in those unguarded moments. Obi-Wan had found himself fighting against the impulse to look at him for the entirety of the meal.

 

And then of course chaos had ensued. Maul had ran out as if all of hell had been on his tail, without so much of an explanation. He and Ezra had followed suit, only to see him stumble to a halt and crumple to the ground and the the visions had started.

No, not visions, memories, Obi-Wan had realised almost immediately: those missing thirteen years, after Obi-Wan had defeated him in Theed.

 

He had always imagined they had not been pleasant, but this was beyond anything he could have concieved and it was pouring out of him raw and unfiltered through their link. He could have raised a shield, like Ezra had done to be able to go and help him, but he did not. He was the one who had put him in the situation of having to live through that horror, the least he could do was go through it with him, witness it, be there for him, at his side as he pulled through once again out of sheer force of will and put his welfare on the line for Ahsoka.

 

Standing up to Kain like that, in those conditions, had been the bravest, most reckless thing he had ever seen him do in their long history of reckless encounters.

He had watched the brief mental battle enfold without knowing what to do. Swirls of Force buffeted him, as hot and caustic as the atmosphere of Mustafar, causing him to shiver at the memory, but when Kain had resurfaced and Force-pushed him against the wall, every single part of him had resonated with indignation, with a deep-rooted need to protect him and take care of him. Maul was his, and he had been ready to die for him. In that moment, Obi-Wan realised that the reverse was equally true. He would not let him come to harm, he would not stand to see him suffer.

 

Kain was right, Maul was too indifferent about his own life: he had been trained to see himself as an instrument, to value himself only as far as he could do things for others, to take every sign of affection as conditional to his actions. He would always put his safety second after what he fought for.  

It was harmful and yet noble in a misguided way, and unlikely to change by itself. The only solution was for someone to care for him, show him that he was important and valid, unconditionally, regardless of what he could do, and make sure he didn't harm himself too much while the message sank.

 

He could do that. He would do that, Obi-Wan told himself, even if it took beating the Zabrak over his stubborn spiky head with the promise that he would always be there for him and never abandon him again, even if it took more fighting to make him accept that it was not a trap, that he could have what he needed, that it wouldn't be taken away on a whim just to hurt him more. That he was safe with him, and always would be.

 

"You stubborn man..." Obi-Wan sighed, nearly weak with relief when he finally capitulated. Maul's hand was cold and clammy in his, shaken by minute tremors. He looked awful, so pale that the red bits of his skin looked more like a greyish orange, breathing hard and shivering with cold, pain and shock. Obi-Wan could almost smell his pain on the air, but there was a small smile on his face, an unguarded, peaceful look in his silver-lilac eyes, full of acceptance, of trust, of affection.

It was no holds barred with him, as usual, Obi-Wan thought with a smile. He wasn't sure he would have wanted it any other way.

 

"Yes, that's it..." he whispered, smiling and wrapping his other hand on top of the first one so that his fingers rested on the inside of Maul's wrist. The four-part beat of his pulse seemed too fast, too shallow, his breaths too laboured,. A jolt of something passed through him. His expression twisted minutely, his hand twitched and a soft noise of distress escaped him, in spite of his valiant attempts at keeping quiet. Knowing him, the situation had to be quite serious.

"Can you walk?" he asked.

Maul took a few gasping breaths before replying.

"I can try." Even his voice sounded quieter, strained.

"It's alright. I will help." he whispered.

"The ship..." Maul managed to gasp.

"Don't worry about the ship. We've got it covered. You did enough... More than enough. You were awesome." Ezra butted in, tearing up in turn. His hand came to rest on Maul's arm, radiating a whiff of power, and almost immediately Maul started to breathe more freely. Ezra was Nature and healing was part of his remit, but he had just started his learning journey and while the trickle was enough to take off the edge of the pain, Obi-Wan doubted that it would last.

"You should get some rest and medical attention. We'll stand guard in case Kain decides to come here and change the coordinates back." Luke sounded far too wise for his years, far too serious. The fire had changed him too.

"He won't try to harm me. You have to trust me on this." the boy added when Maul tried to object again.

"You go and get some rest, alright? We'll need your help to get Ahsoka out. We'll be fine here. Probably bored out of our heads, but fine." Ezra pointed out, putting up a brave face even though he was clearly worried.

 

There wasn't much else to say after that. 

Somehow, they managed to stand and walk, stumbling like drunks through the corridors of the Gauntlet towards Maul's cabin.

He didn't say a word, but Obi-Wan could tell it was quite an ordeal for him, and when they finally got to his bed, he let himself fall on it with a grateful sigh and just lay there, breathing hard, a hand pressed against his abdomen where flesh met prosthetics.

 

"Are you in much pain?" Obi-Wan asked, kneeling next to the bed.

"A bit." Maul replied with a grimace, eyes screwed shut.

"Is there anything I can do?" Obi-Wan asked, daring to smooth a hand over his furrowed, burning-hot brow.

"Pills. First drawer." Maul instructed, nodding towards the closest group of compartments.

Obi-Wan wasted no time in opening it.

"Which ones?"

"Both." Maul replied.

Obi-Wan didn't question the instructions and placed a pill from each box in his outstretched palm. As far as he could ascertain, they were a strong anti-inflammatory and an equally strong painkiller. Judging from thay and from the slightly desperate way he knocked them back without any water, "a bit" had to mean "lots",

 

"Does... does it happen often?" he asked, feeling his heart clench at the thought. It was his fault, and even though he could not imagine a different outcome to their first duel, he wished there had been a way to prevent all of this, to fix their crossed destinies before they were too broken.

"Not often, no. - Maul replied, relaxing fractionally - I have some bad days." 

"And today is one of them." Obi-Wan concluded.

"I took a bad hit." he replied, always minimising. He was shivering again, however, minute tremors ran all over his limbs.

"You have a fever." Obi-Wan announced, checking his temperature again.

"It happens. It's nothing to worry about." Maul said matter-of-factly, but at the same time leaned discreetly into his touch with a grateful sigh.

"Do you want me to get you a wet rag?" Obi-Wan asked, unable to repress a small smile at the cuteness of the scene.

"What for?" he replied, sounding genuinely baffled.

Of course he would not know. What was the likelihood that anyone had ever taken care of him, that he had ever let them come close enough?

"To make you feel better." Obi-Wan explained.

"I don't need it." he lied, as expected, pulling back from contact, ashamed and even slightly afraid.

 

Obi-Wan sighed and sat on the bed next to him.

"He punished you for showing pain or weakness, didn't he?" he asked.

Maul flinched, as if struck.

"How do you know? Did Ezra..."

"He said nothing. He would not betray your trust." Obi-Wan reassured him, pushing him down gently with a hand on his shoulder to prevent him from trying to sit up and hurting himself even more.

"Then how?" Maul insisted.

"Your memories: I saw them. I didn't look away. I know what he did to you." Obi-Wan revealed, holding his gaze. Those beautiful, silver-lilac eyes filled with tears and then Maul looked away in shame.

"What's wrong?" he asked, worry rising another notch.

" _I didn't want you to know. Not like that._ " Maul was too weak to talk, or maybe he didn't trust that his voice would not break. His sending was as soft as quiet as his speaking voice. Obi-Wan would bet that Sidious punished him also for being too loud. It was hard to imagine how horrible his apprenticeship must have been.

 

" _It changes nothing, Maul. It changes nothing. You're not pitiful."_ he sent back, contesting a whiff of thought that had floated between them.

"I should have fought back... I should have run..." he protested between gritted teeth, but Obi-Wan could sense the truth behind those angry words. He didn't know there was anything but Sidious in the whole Galaxy back then. He had been taken too young and hurt too much to see that it was not normal, that it was not right. Hindsight was a poisoned gift.

"But you have, haven't you? You you've gone against the Empire since the start." he encouraged.

"I have. I've killed quite a few Inquisitors too. For all the good that it did..." Maul retorted with a bitter smile.

"It was more than I did. I just sat there waiting for destiny to sweep me up. I was sleepwalking through life, punishing myself for falling for Sidious' plans, waiting to die, to end..." the last words escaped him as a sob and for a moment the weight of all his mistakes bore down on him like an unbearable load.

"Why? You did nothing wrong." Maul grabbed the lapels of his tunic and almost tried to sit up. His words seemed to have snapped him out of his own misery and to have pushed his protective side to the forefront once again.

"I was his pawn too. We all were. He made us dance to his tune to the very end, and the more we thought we were fighting against his plans, the more we were fulfilling them." Obi-Wan's voice reflected his desolation. The intervening years had not made the guilt and shame easier to bear.

"I won't let him harm you ever again." Maul declared. The Force around him was a roiling, churning maelstrom of feelings, of anger, but also attachment, affection, the desire to protect, to fix it once and for all, to earn some kind of happiness, like the life he had just glimpsed that morning.

 

"If that is truly what you want, why did you have such a hard time accepting my offer?" he sent, but gently, to tease, not to chide.

"Because I know I don't deserve it." he replied without any hesitation.

" _What I've done to you... I know how much it hurts. I've learned it the hard way and it's a pain that does not fade, a wound that cannot be mended and... and you did not deserve it. You didn't deserve my hate. You were never the enemy. I realised it too late, as always._ " he sent through the Force, and though he looked as stoic as ever, face blank like a mask, his eyes glittered with tears.

"Maul..."

"I don't know how you can not hate me, Kenobi. I just... How can you just sit here and help me and not want to erase me from the face of the bleeding Galaxy?" his voice was quiet, but it did break this time and his chest heaved with a sob.

Sidious flashed in his thoughs, his hands stained with the blood of those he had held dear, the image intense and sharp enough for him to see, edged with fear and shame.

 

"Because you are not like him!!!" Obi-Wan blurted out, hitting the metal chest next to the bed with his fist hard enough to hurt. Maul startled a bit at the noise and looked at him with wide eyes, in awe or fear, Obi-Wan could not tell.

"Because you're sorry and I know that you mean it. Because you want to fix it and if there was a single chance of doing it you'd try. Because you tried your best already. That makes all of the difference to me." he added, and while that was the absolute truth, it wasn't all of it, and he deserved to hear it all.

"Because I'm tired of loss. I'm tired of death. You are all I have left of my old world, and I didn't ever realise how much it mattered until you jumped from that speeder to fight for me." he confessed. His heart twinged again at the mere memory.

"When I though you had died, I felt like part of me had died too. I don't know why I care for you, and it doesn't bloody matter. I do. I am not going to let this slip between my fingers again." he was crying now, his sight was almost totally blurred with tears and his words came out in gasps. He tried to turn away, but a warm, warm hand on his cheek made him stop in his tracks.

"When Order 66 happened and suddenly I could no longer see your light in the distance... I thought Sidious had taken you too." Maul whispered.

"I tried to go on as normal, Ahsoka was grieving, she needed me, but it was sort of the last straw, you know? Like I had nothing left to put my hope in. You had always been there, even when no one else was, at the center of my thoughts, at the edge of my perception, more real than I felt, at times. I didn't know how to live without that. I didn't want to."

There was a lopsided, mirthless smile on his face and a faded but still wicked, silvery-orange scar on the inside of his right wrist, across and then along, running almost the length of his forearm.

Obi-Wan felt a jolt of horror at the sight and his breath caught in his throat.

"Maul... Force help us, you..." 

"Ahsoka found me in time." he said and Obi-Wan silently blessed her for that.

"Promise me you're never going to do anything like this again. Promise."

The idea of losing him like that, of finding him too late, left him paralyzed with worry.

"I won't. My life is yours." Maul said and tilted his head ever so slightly, exposing his throat in a clear, shocking gesture of submission. 

"No. That's... that's not how it works. I don't own you, Maul. I won't be your master or your captor."Obi-Wan protested. Force, he could not.

"So what would you be? _"_ he challenged.

"Your friend. Your family. _"_ Obi-Wan replied, but the memory of their kiss floated to the front of his mind once again, in all its absurd, bittersweet glory, and a stab of longing pierced through his heart.

" _This?..._ " Maul asked in a quiet, expectant sending, full of need and dread, all rolled into one.

" _Yes, this too, if this is what you want_." Obi-Wan admitted and it felt as if one last layer of his Jedi persona was slipping off him like the old skin of a snake, leaving him regenerated and renewed.

Maul pulled him down towards himself, and 

he followed his lead as if in a trance, up until they were nose-to-nose, breaths mingling.

He looked at him with wide, unfocused eyes, waiting, yearning. Obi-Wan nodded and he pulled him in a little bit further, pressing their lips together once again. It was almost as gentle as the first time, tentative, hesitant even, but there was no more sense of wrongness, only warmth, devotion, belonging. It felt right, in spite of everything, like it was always meant to be and Obi-Wan found that he couldn't get enough of it, of the way Maul held him close, of the small sounds he made as they kissed, of being cherished, of being loved.

 

When they finally surfaced for air, his breath came in pants and gasps and his body felt flushed with heat, but most of all, his heart was close to bursting with too much happiness. He wasn't used to that. Neither of them was.

 

"You're so beautiful..." Maul whispered, tracing the shell of his ear with a fingertip as he gazed at him with half-lidded eyes.

Obi-Wan laughed the compliment away.

"Are you sure you're not becoming delirious?" he joked.

"I am not. And you are... you always were, even with that silly Padawan braid and no trace of beard." he replied, starting to scratch the beard in object.

"You like my beard?!" Obi-Wan exclaimed, suddenly derailed. It itched a little bit, but it was a good kind of itch, soothing, relaxing.

"Yes... well, I always thought it was a nice change. You looked unfinished without it." Maul replied.

"I remember you commenting about it when you came back. You didn't sound very positive at the time." Obi-Wan teased him.

"I was trying to kill you. - Maul retorted with an eye-roll - It would have sounded all kinds of disturbing if I had told you something like 'And by the way I like your beard. It makes you look more shaggable, pity I don't have a... you know... anymore', wouldn't it?" he challenged, looking awfully embarrassed and chagrined.

"It would have." Obi-Wan agreed, then dipped his head to kiss him once more.

Force, he had not been like this as an adolescent, but now he couldn't help himself.

 

"We shouldn't do this." he panted eventually, some unquantifiable time later, pulling back fractionally. His back was starting to protest, but he didn't dare move too far away. He didn't want to give him the impression that he was rejecting him.

"Did you suddenly remember you're straight?" Maul jabbed.

"What? No! But you are hurt and you have a high fever. Wouldn't it be better if you rested for a while?"

"Maybe." Maul admitted, but without even pausing his caresses. His hand drifted diwn from his jawline and sneaked through the gap at the collar of his robes, teasing the soft skin at the hollow of his throat with the pad of a thumb. Obi-Wan couldn't help but shudder in pleasure.

"Maybe I should go." he managed to say, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. 

"Maybe you should stay. - Maul countered - I bet you'll be checking in on me. Might as well be close, no?" he provoked, but his bravado was ruined by a full-body shudder.

"Hey, are you alright?" Obi-Wan asked. His brain cleared instantly of all the fuzz, and he was back to being alert and very worried.

"Cold. It's freezing and burning. Twice the fun." Maul retorted flippantly, even though his teeth were chattering. He stirred a bit, maybe trying to curl up around him, but desisted. It must have been rather painful.

"Where are the blankets?"

Maul jerked his head towards a cupboard. The blankets looked military issue, coarse and grey, but thick and still smelling like laundry detergent, the same kind as the box lying on top of the washing machine in the service area of the ship. For some reason the mental image of Maul doing the laundry filled him with fondness.

 

Obi-Wan spread the blankets out on top of him, tucking him in as well as he could, but Maul didn't stop shivering.

I really should go and let him sleep, Obi-Wan told himself, but he couldn't bring himself to leave him alone like that, not after all that happened, not after all they said.

 

"Would you really be alright if I stayed?" he asked, sitting next to him once more.

"Y-yes... I-I would." Maul replied, with a nod.

"B-but, you don't have to do this if it makes y-you uncomfortable." he added immediately, giving him one last chance to bail out, but Obi-Wan shook his head, and stood once more, toeing off his boots and placing his cloak over the stand. His tabard and overtunic followed suit, as well as his inner tunic, leaving him in his threadbare, sand-worn trousers. Maul's eyes didn't leave him for a second, his gaze intent and admiring. It had been very long since anyone had looked at him like that.

 

"Enjoying the show...?" Obi-Wan teased, hiding his embarrassment with a veil of bravado.

Maul startled and blushed.

"I... I am sorry."

"What for?"

"Staring. I... I can't take my eyes off you. I am half afraid you'll disappear if I do." he whispered.

"Heh, I am hardly fairytale material." Obi-Wan laughed, suddenly self-conscious about his stringy, greying appearance.

"You are to me." he retorted. His gaze still burned like lilac fire as he pushed the blankets aside, leaving a space for him. 

 

Obi-Wan hesitated a moment more, half-afraid. Not of him, no: he knew he was a lot less likely to harm him than to harm himself. After so many years of self-denial he was afraid of yielding, afraid of comfort, of happiness, of reaching out for something that could be taken away from him, but he would face his fears rather than succumb to them, he decided. He deserved this. They both did.

 

He gave Maul a wan, embarrassed smile and slithered under the blankets, pretending that his heart didn't beat like a drum and that the breath wasn't catching in his throat.

The sheets were cool and slightly rough, but clean and they warmed up rapidly with the eat of their bodies. Maul pulled the blankets back on top of them both but didn't otherwise move, leaving an empty space between them, waiting.

Obi-Wan moved caustiously, as if dealing with a skittish, wounded cat, carefully scooting over to fill the gap and then inching his arm around his shoulders, watching him for signs of discomfort.

"Tell me if it is too much." he whispered.

"It's perfect."

Maul nestled against the side of his body with a grateful, shuddering sigh. His skin was burning hot and he could feel his hearts thundering in his chest in a frantic four-part beat.

"You feel so good..." he sighed, nuzzling into his neck as if no amount of closeness was going to ever be enough.

"You're not bad either..." Obi-Wan replied, a wide, silly smile on his lips. The heat and the feel of skin-to-skin contact were sinking into his bones, making him almost melt in a puddle of endorphines and relaxation.

The corruption of the Force had stolen the life they should have had from them, making dispossessed drifters out of them, but now lying there, in his former nemesis' embrace felt like finally arriving home after the longest of voyages.

 

There was some more shifting around until they found the perfect position, face to face, legs tangled, wrapped in the tightest possible embrace, and if sleep was long in coming, in spite of their exhaustion, it was just because it all seemed already a dream and neither of them wanted to wake up from it.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
